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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866471">Toothache</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lee_of_io/pseuds/Lee_of_io'>Lee_of_io</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Cure For What Ails You [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol used as a Coping Mechanism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mutual Pining, References to Addiction, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Trauma, Unreliable Narrator</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:08:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>42,687</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28866471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lee_of_io/pseuds/Lee_of_io</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Things take a turn for the worse in the torture chamber of Tesham Mutna.  Geralt is forced to make a split-second decision that will have far-reaching consequences for the Witcher and his dearest friend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dettlaff van der Eretein &amp; Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Dettlaff van der Eretein/Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>A Cure For What Ails You [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2265662</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>323</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Regis Rocks</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">

        <li>
          Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: 
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30733025">【授翻】Toothache</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AyaFina/pseuds/AyaFina">AyaFina</a>
        </li>


    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Things quickly went to shit as a scurver’s spines ruptured the last resistance of a battered Quen shield. </p>
<p class="p1">Geralt’s attention had already turned to deflecting the swipes of an advancing alghoul’s claws; paying little mind to the incapacitated necrophage’s spasms as its body violently ruptured.A mistake, he quickly realized, as a rain of razor-splinter spines impacted into the unprotected flesh of his neck and head.</p>
<p class="p1">Above, Regis’ ragged howls took on a fresh fevered pitch.The cage swung with renewed violence as the higher vampire’s blood-lust escalated exponentially, whether by the exploded gore of the scurver or by the Witcher’s own drawn blood, Geralt could only allow a modicum of unease to speculate as the onslaught of necrophages and vampires continued unabated.</p>
<p class="p1">Regis’ screams of torment had long since devolved from words into mere bestial roars, the cracking of chains, metal on metal, and the higher vampire’s elongated claws rasping and writhing against the bares and cuffs of his imprisonment rang louder in Geralt’s ears than the shriek of the katakan leaping at his person.</p>
<p class="p1">Caught in a rare moment of disorientation by the scurver’s attack, Geralt was unable to counter in time.The katakan’s massive claws raked across his abdomen, catching along refined draconid leather and dimeritium, but also offering a bruising, punishing blow.</p>
<p class="p1">The Witcher is sent hurdling back, cultivating bruises and dust, tumbling along the blood-splattered stone of Tesham Mutna’s torture chamber.</p>
<p class="p1">The violent sawing swing of the cage above is a shadowed pendulum in Geralt’s dazed vision, knocked prone and momentarily disinclined to right himself, despite almost a century of ingrained instincts screaming for him to fight for his life.</p>
<p class="p1">Distantly, the Witcher noted Regis’ maddened attempts to avail himself of his prison, and how his momentum and grasping claws seemed strained in Geralt’s direction, grasping furiously.No doubt reaching for the tantalizing warmth that Geralt could feel wetting the numb abrasions along his neck and exposed skin.His impact with the ground had at least done him the courtesy of wrenching some of the scurver’s rancid spines loose.His blood flows freely, to the delight of the katakan and gathered corpse-eaters. </p>
<p class="p1">Things had gotten too quickly out of hand. </p>
<p class="p1">Of course, he had faced monsters in larger numbers than this before with little difficultly.However, Regis had been reluctant to divulge the reality of his plan ahead of time and Geralt had come armed only with blade oil and a dose of Swallow, the former of which was rapidly losing effectiveness with each foe dispatched and the latter wearing thin as it knit his punctured neck and scalp. </p>
<p class="p1">Necrophages continued to spill through the tunnels with no sign of stopping.Geralt launched himself to his feet just as a large fleder impacted the ground where he’d lain.An upward strike with his silver sword sent the vampire reeling, but not for long as powerful claws cut the air with increasing speed, quickly catching up to Geralt’s dodging form.</p>
<p class="p1">A lone claw slices along his weakened armor and rends the flesh across his ribs, the impact of the hit rattles the teeth in his skull and drive him into the chamber wall, a flash in the dark is all he can see of his sword spinning into the dim.</p>
<p class="p1">Between the surging spray of blood and pain sending his head spinning and the cacophonous cries of frenzied monsters, Geralt is dimly aware of something digging into the meat of his back.A wandering hand finds his attention drawn to the handle of a lever, the one that controls the mechanism suspending Regis’ cage.</p>
<p class="p1">A small voice wonders at the stupidity of his impending impulsiveness; to add a blood-crazed higher vampire to an already dire situation.The results would be utterly unpredictable at best.Not to mention deadly.</p>
<p class="p1">This voice of logic, that in Geralt’s head speaks suspiciously with a voice that resembles Regis’ articulations, is ignored with the child-like sentiment that says, <em>I trust Regis</em>.If he dies right here and now, then Regis would be left, trapped indefinitely to be tortured by the scent of blood and whatever the scavenges left of Geralt’s remains.At least free, Regis had a way out, even if that way out came at the cost of the Witcher’s own life.The factors were too many and dismally unknown.</p>
<p class="p1"><em>Fuck it</em>, he thinks and gives the matter no more thought as he grasps the lever and pulls.</p>
<p class="p1">The cage comes crashing down, impacting the debris-strewn floor and momentarily sending the chamber to silence as the monsters startle, sensing with animal awareness that a creature of much deadly caliber, no longer thrashing in the rafters, is now in their midst.</p>
<p class="p1">Taking advantage of the lull in hostility, Geralt leapt forward past claws and teeth to the door of Regis’ cage.His sudden movement attracted the attention of all around, fear temporarily forgotten with predatory intent upon a fleeing meal; most took the distraction for the escape it offered and warily retreated back to the tunnels to live another day to seek out easier prey.The katakan, a lesser vampire known for its perception and intelligence, also chose to flee rather than face the possible coming wrath of its higher vampire brethren. </p>
<p class="p1">All the time, Regis’ bestial features and shining black eyes zeroed in on the movements of the approaching Witcher.</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t allow thoughts of the irrationality of his actions to stop him; not even allowing himself to glance at the twisted features of his friend.His instincts scream at him to leave well enough alone, but at the very least he knows he must get a sample of Regis’ blood, all would have been in vain otherwise.With a quick flick of his knife (the irony of it being the knife he would use to collect decapitated trophies for his contracts now turned on a friend not lost on him) he deftly collects a measure of blood from the rapidly healing cut on the vampire’s palm.Not losing a finger to the flailing knife-like claws is an exercise in steeled-nerves and dumb luck.If there was any further doubt in Regis’ warning back at Mère-Lachaiselongue Cemetery about the unpredictability of a vampire high on blood-lust now it is gone.Geralt isn’t sure how much of his friend is still aware beneath the bared fangs and furious lunging, but he hopes there’s enough.</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt has time to break open one of the silver alloy cuffs and loosen the second before a pair of massive hands catch him unaware and wrench him through the air back into the mass of a newly emboldened fleder.The Witcher’s time was up, his attempt to free his friend and seek his aid, however volatile, had run out, and now the beasts that were too heedless and single-minded in their hunger to give mind to any threat were circling once more.</p>
<p class="p1">To either side of Regis’ cage come a handful of ghouls, made bold by the fleder’s success in capturing the Witcher, now rushing forward to claim their hunk of the prize.Geralt can no longer see Regis, trapped as he is in the immobilizing hold of the fleder, while the slathering maws of necrophages fill his vision.Before he can lash out with the knife still in his grip or form a sign, the mandibles of the fleder spring wide and crunch into the armor of his shoulder plates.With this much concentrated force, the armor buckles like a rusted hinge, cracking the clavicle and punching into the meat of his deltoid muscle with a sickening crunch of blood, bone, and meat.</p>
<p class="p1">His screams rend his throat, reflecting as much the intensity of the pain as the surprise of the attack.Without conscious thought, the knife drops from his hand under a spasm of nerve input from destroyed endings.</p>
<p class="p1">The fleder holding him fast in its grip gnaws momentarily at the penetrated shoulder armor clinging to the ruined flesh, as useless now as the brittle shell on a roasted nut.The lesser vampire is distracted from diving in for another bite as the ghouls test their luck and surge forward to clamp down on the Witcher’s legs.Given their weaker teeth in comparison to the fleder, all the ghouls manage to do is tear at the armor encompassing Geralt’s calves, and also to piss off the fleder, who is disinclined to share and lets fly a hiss from the putrid maw positioned above its prey’s flinching face.</p>
<p class="p1">When encountering a situation of overwhelming odds and a fair amount of bodily trauma, blood loss, etc.,most humans might give in to shock and or unconsciousness.But over the years, from having been in a number of startlingly similar situations to this, Geralt knows from experience that his pesky Witcher mutagens are more or less designed to keep him aware and present in such moments.It was truly disconcerting if one ruminated on the old adage that no Witcher ever died in their bed; no, rather, they were all forced to be fully cognizant and aware of their impending demise at the jaws or claws of some lucky creature until their bodies finally mercifully gave up the ghost.Given that his executioners felt the non-pressing need to squabble over their food like an ornery nest of eaglets, what Geralt wouldn’t give for something strong to gulp down and put him right out of his adrenaline jacked senses.Or perhaps some blessed head-trauma to knock him out.He wasn’t picky.</p>
<p class="p1">Just as the clamping bites about his calves were beginning to make way through armor to flesh, a wild shrike of metal and an answering howl or unmitigated rage were all that precede what Geralt has moments to identify as a metal cage is hurdling into the feeding-frenzy mob.The ghouls take the brunt of the projectile, but Geralt is not left without having taken a glancing blow slamming into his chin, rattling his head further and leaving him sprawled back amidst the limbs of the fleder, who is equally caught off guard.</p>
<p class="p1">A warm wash of blood sprays Geralt’s face as he looks up in time to see Regis ripping into the ghouls with such incensed enthusiasm that it’s hard to track even with enhanced eyes.</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the might of his higher vampire friend.He had witnessed the bloodshed and effortless carnage that came in the wake of his rampage through Stygga Castle.At the time, Geralt had wondered at his luck that such a being would concentrate his efforts in seeing to the defense of Geralt and his friends.Now, he hopes that past the blood-addiction, the sangurium, and the building torment, that his friend was once again fighting <em>for</em> him and not as a means to merely get to him and satiate his thirst.</p>
<p class="p1">“Regis,” his call comes out as no more than a pained gurgle as blood burns that back of his throat and the muscles in his neck spasm under pain and duress. </p>
<p class="p1">It’s enough, the head of the beast whips in his direction as silted nostrils flare.Before the fleder can do more than brace on its feet above Geralt, the higher vampire blinks through the air in a trail of curling smoke, reappearing to lunge at the other predator and lay it flat. </p>
<p class="p1">Geralt scrambles to escape the whirling of claws and fangs, focusing single-mindedly on getting as far from the blood-bath as possible.Behind him, he almost feels a pang of sympathy for the increasingly distressed screams of the fleder, <em>almost</em>.Obviously, the beast was too trusting of other vampires or simply overestimated its abilities in the face of a far superior adversary.It would not survive to learn its lesson.</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt is has stumble-crawled halfway across the open floor of Tesham Mutna’s torture chamber when the noises of battle come to a crescendo with an elongated wail cut short by the death knell of a sickening crunch and a wet thud that echos through the room.</p>
<p class="p1">All is quiet.Geralt strains his ears, but cannot make out any indication of the presence behind him.</p>
<p class="p1">Slowly, Geralt turns and struggles to his feet, straining to keep from making any noise of pain that may further puncture the silence.His swords had long since been discarded about the room in the violence of having been thrown about, but even still, he dare not draw a weapon now on Regis, even as a precaution.He doesn’t know what to expect and making himself appear a threat would be the last thing he ever does, if the butchered corpses of the ghouls and fleder are anything to go by.Absently his hand reaches to grasp the ragged bloody mess of his shoulder before he thinks better of the action.</p>
<p class="p1">In the dim light of the overhead torches, the Witcher can just make out bits of the fleder’s bulk across the room.Above it, hunched over, is Regis.As he strains his hearing in the silence, Geralt can just make out the soft sounds of slurping.He can’t help a small hitch of breath as it registers in his mind, rather numbly, that Regis is <em>drinking</em> from the fleder’s cooling corpse.</p>
<p class="p1">The small noise draws the higher vampire’s gaze, eyes flashing as tapetum lucidum appear as a predatory glow through the dim light.</p>
<p class="p1">“Regis?”</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t know what to expect.Regis is no longer growling or acting wildly as he was when trapped in the cage, but so too have his features not returned from their more monstrous guise.Now that the threats had been dispatched, would his friend regain his senses?</p>
<p class="p1">Answers were not forthcoming and the adrenaline in the Witcher’s veins was giving up the fight to keep his ravaged body on its feet.Before he knows it, his knees buckle and his balance pitches forward rapidly.</p>
<p class="p1">He’s not entirely prepared for the pain of one more unprotected impact with the ground, but apparently, neither does he need to be.In the blink of an eye, strong arms have caught him before his head can hit the unforgiving stone.After a moment of disorientation, Geralt wonders at the hands, claws retracted once again to the guise of long nails, that hold him steady.</p>
<p class="p1">
  <em>“Geralt.”</em>
</p>
<p class="p1">The approximation of his name comes out as a cobbled growl rather than true enunciation, but it matters little.If Regis has it together enough to speak rather than lunge for his neck, Geralt considers that a success.</p>
<p class="p1">Or rather, perhaps he had let his guard down too soon.</p>
<p class="p1">The meat of his shoulder is one big mass of acute pain, but even still he registers a questing touch along the ragged edges of the wound, causing him to gasp sharply.</p>
<p class="p1">“Regis, wha-?”</p>
<p class="p1">A low reverberating growl shudders through the vampire’s chest and into Geralt’s as Regis pushes closer, now lapping at the Witcher’s wound with a determined tongue.</p>
<p class="p1">Geralt tries to raise a hand to push Regis’ head away, but the vampire is quicker and captures the protesting hand, restraining it. </p>
<p class="p1">“Regis, stop!This isn’t what you want!Trust me, <em>stop!</em>”</p>
<p class="p1">Too late.</p>
<p class="p1">While Regis’ mouth is nowhere near as large as the fleder’s, he is able to get a considerable amount of the wounded shoulder beneath the bite of his fangs.A pained shuddering moan is drawn from Geralt’s throat as blood is drawn from his weakened body.It’s nothing like the brutal rending from the lesser vampire, in fact, for all his crazed frenzy against the other monsters, Regis holds Geralt firmly but delicately.He’s almost being cradled, he thinks distantly.</p>
<p class="p1">Not a terrible way to die, all told.And he is dying, or so his overactive mutagens tell him.For he wouldn’t be slipping away, as he is now, for anything less.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Inspired by how badly I ate this quest when I first played it.  Next chapter, some good-old-fashioned hurt/comfort for these lads.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>FYI, this chapter and all chapters moving forward contain spoilers for The Witcher book series and minor spoilers for the first Witcher game.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Before his conscious mind surfaces from the realm of sleep, Geralt’s body comes to painful wakefulness. </p><p class="p1">His sense of smell tells him that he is underground and that the mild ventilation isn’t enough to air out the odor of the ancient dead.His ears pick up the drip of liquid, not unlike blood being lapped up by eager darting tongues.His spatial awareness is now cognizant of the fact that he has been unarmored and rendered vulnerable. </p><p class="p1">With this deluge of sensory information consuming his brain, it's no wonder that he shoots awake with an adrenaline rush.</p><p class="p1">Only to kickstart a pounding ache behind his eyes and roiling nausea in his gut.He lowers his head down between his knees in pain.</p><p class="p1">“Ugh.”</p><p class="p1">“Well said, my friend.”</p><p class="p1">And just like that, the flood of anxiety worrying at long-ingrained Witcher instincts abates.</p><p class="p1">Regis is here.Regis is safe. </p><p class="p1">Now that the lingering dread that he might still be back down in the dank, fetid recesses of Tesham Mutna was dispelled, he could easily pick up on all the things his senses previously hadn’t.</p><p class="p1">The musty aroma of a crypt was layered heavily with an earthen bouquet of herbs— wormwood, basil, sage, aniseed— scents that initially evoked a pang of bittersweet nostalgia in Geralt before evolving into an emotion of safety.Like warming his bones in front of the fire at Kaer Morhen, the cordial atmosphere of Mère-Lachaiselongue Cemetery had become an unexpected comfort.</p><p class="p1">The drip of liquid that had seemed so insidious at first to his sleep-addled mind now registered as the soft, constant burbling of a copper alembic, condensers, and various cylinders, funnels, and flasks all upon the still; merrily boiling, steaming, and conveying various ingredients through the distillation process.All common in any alchemical lab setting, but retaining a distinctive home-made flair.</p><p class="p1">Admittedly, it takes him a few further moments to feel the slight rasp of a woolen blanket tangled about his legs, one that still holds the warmth of his body-heat where it had no doubt been arranged with care about his person.Beneath him is a straw mattress, thin and worn in places, but blissful compared to his bruised body’s memory of slamming into solid stone.The reason for his unarmored state became apparent as compresses binding his shoulder and torso pulled tightly with the rise and fall of his breath.</p><p class="p1">He hazards opening his eyes past the pulsating pain in his head to see Regis, alive and well, relative to his last appearance, perched upon a stool at his workbench but turned entirely to regard Geralt with his full attention.His visage is once more human, without a lingering trace of the flared nostrils, blackened sclera, the spider-webbing of darkened veins branching from beneath his distinctive widow’s peak, and the scale-like spots that bloomed along his hair-line. </p><p class="p1">The sudden impression of the monster, that had so recently overcome his friend, overlays his gentle features (a remnant of residual panic, nightmares, and memory) causing Geralt’s breath to hitch every so slightly.</p><p class="p1">Though subtle, it was enough of a reaction to provoke a small flinch from the vampire.</p><p class="p1">“Forgive me, Geralt.I hadn’t meant to give you a start,” Regis says carefully, glancing down at his hands folded on his lap, lacing and unlacing fingers in what would have been a show of nerves on anyone else.“Especially given all that has transpired so very recently.”</p><p class="p1">It's impossible to miss the tension that hangs like a foglet’s miasma over the both of them.Upon closer inspection, Regis is affecting a purposeful air of calm, as Geralt had witnessed his friend demonstrate a number of times when approaching skittish animals or wounded individuals in need of his medical expertise.The higher vampire’s shoulders are hunched ever so slightly, doubtlessly to seem smaller.His hands are deliberately visible and arranged close together, as opposed to the spread, arm-length span that would be advantageous to swiping claws.He is sitting, an action that projects ease and familiarity, posture open and welcoming. </p><p class="p1">All told, Regis looks every bit like the unassuming tax collector Geralt had once mistaken him for upon their meeting back at Fen Carn. </p><p class="p1">However, while Geralt’s mind, speeding up with wakefulness, can make these observations, his mouth has a bit of catching up to do in eloquence.</p><p class="p1">“Fuck me,” he mumbles into the palms of his hands as his fingertips work to message the pain in his temples.</p><p class="p1">“Pardon?”And there’s a recognizable humored lilt to the question. </p><p class="p1">Good.A bit of levity was needed here, and if it happened to be at Geralt’s expense (or poor word choice) he would happily shoulder that burden.</p><p class="p1">“My head is pounding.Feels like I just came off a bender of White Gull.”</p><p class="p1">“Ah,” there is the sound of pouring and stirring liquid close at hand before a small wooden mug is offered.“This should help.”</p><p class="p1">Their fingers briefly touch as the mug is passed along, though Regis withdraws his hand quickly thereafter, almost upsetting the steaming contents.</p><p class="p1">“What’s this?”A tentative sniff of the mug’s contents calls to mind notes of celandine and ribleaf, among other herbal notes.Geralt takes a sip and is pleasantly surprised to find a pinch of cinnamon had been added to mellow out any bitter edge.</p><p class="p1">“A restorative elixir mixed with a mild analgesic.Nowhere near as efficient as your Witcher’s potions, but without the risk of inducing toxicity and further aggravating your compromised constitution,” Regis explains with a thoroughness indicative of fill an awkward silence. </p><p class="p1">Or perhaps Geralt is projecting given that he finds himself at a loss for words. </p><p class="p1">Regis was acting wary to the point of distraction.His body language was the carefully crafted persona that he used when among the general populous; a carefully-crafted, subtle albeit humble humanity.Regis had abandon this facade with Geralt long ago in their hansa days.There was not much point in Regis disguising the inhuman aspects of his person around a group that ultimately came to welcome his companionship all the same.And that it had been acts of compassion that had given up his disguise— grasping the hot horseshoe to demonstrate the innocence of an accused girl, freeing Geralt and Dandelion by compelling the Temerian guards to sleep— was telling enough that even the Geralt of back then, who did not have his current counterpart’s wealth of insight into what a morally well-adjusted vampire might mean, stayed his sword and let Regis off with a warning.A warning that, thankfully for the both of them, Regis knew better than to heed.</p><p class="p1">But past contemplations only lend their aid to present conundrums up to a point.A trust had been disturbed between them.Now to see if that trust was broken or merely battered.But any practiced barber-surgeon or Witcher worth their salt knows how to set and mend a break.</p><p class="p1">It had been an accident, or rather a series of miscalculations and rash decisions on Geralt’s part.If anyone was to blame for what took place in the pit of Tesham Mutna, Geralt was certain that Regis was the wronged party.Regis had planned and implemented safeguards that were to expressly <em>prevent</em> what Geralt had chosen to allow to happen. </p><p class="p1">Regis should be justifiably upset with him, not acting as if one false move might send the Witcher away. </p><p class="p1">But therein lay the rub,how does one navigate the verbal balancing-act that came with either choosing to address or <em>not</em> to address what happened?</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s head began to spin with a new vigor just thinking about it.He takes a few more mouthfuls of the proffered elixir to help settle in and to keep focused on the pressing task that was the veritable kikimore queen in the room.</p><p class="p1">His eyes flick upwards to Regis’ hesitant face.He looks on the verge of speaking, but holds himself in check, as if contemplating the same strategic approach to broaching this sensitive discussion.Geralt quirks a questioning eyebrow, hoping to prompt the other into opening up.</p><p class="p1">“How do you feel?Other than your head, that is,” Regis, at last, asks in a rush of words, brows furled in concern though his expression is otherwise kept carefully neutral.The vampire’s eyes flicker briefly from the Witcher’s face down to where his shoulder wound is stitched, sanitized, and thoughtfully wrapped in gauze, hidden beneath a linen shirt that fits him so well, Geralt suspects it might have been borrowed straight from his vineyard estate.</p><p class="p1">“Feel like I got into a fistfight with a rock troll and lost, badly,” he mumbles into his mug dryly, “Incidentally, I have some experience with that.”He can’t help but smile as he thinks of some of his more memorable escapades in Skellige.</p><p class="p1">“I sense a fascinating tale to be told there, but a topic for another time,” the wry look on Regis’ face turns to one of reluctance. </p><p class="p1">“Tell me, Geralt, what precisely do you remember before waking?Of what occurred in the dungeon?I have my own recollections, but I feel they are unreliable given my… state at the time.I wish to know your side of things.” </p><p class="p1">Geralt finishes the elixir, partially to allow time to gather his thoughts and also to fortify himself for this difficult interview. </p><p class="p1">His mind wants to walk the well-worn routine he would with Vesemir when recalling a hunt.Going into the details of his actions and the responses of his adversaries.His mentor would interject where he felt necessary, sometimes demanding further information, sometimes passing Geralt a sword so that he might demonstrate a particular strike or form he used in the heat of the moment. </p><p class="p1">Somehow, a dynamic demonstration of Geralt’s failure to hold back a pack of necrophages and vampires didn’t seem the best way to recall events to Regis.Any way he approached this, it would not be easy for either of them.</p><p class="p1">And so, with awkward pauses and vagaries, the Witcher recollects the fight in the pit and where it all went horribly wrong. </p><p class="p1">He explained how he had been poorly equipped in regards to potions, leaving out the bit about how there had been such a sense of haste after Regis had consumed the blood and sangurium mixture that he hadn’t felt there was time to brew up more than was minimally necessary.Saying so would sound too much like an accusation when, in reality, it spoke more to Geralt’s overconfidence.He could practically hear Vesemir’s voice, chiding from beyond the grave, telling him he had acted like a novice barely out of the trials rather than his near-century of life and experience.</p><p class="p1">Losing his swords had been another turning point. </p><p class="p1">The fight was salvageable up until then, but a Witcher’s swords were an extension of their being.A Witcher was not without means when unarmed— signs, strength and speed, the training to recognize and utilize environmental advantages in a heartbeat— these were tools that could mean the difference between living through and encounter and becoming a monster’s meal.But the torture chamber pit was unforgiving.Even before Regis had confessed the grizzly details of the ancient vampire prison, Geralt knew that it was a place meant to make it as difficult as possible to escape.When in a fight for one’s life, such details of architecture made it a poor place for combat.</p><p class="p1">This all led to the lever at his back, Regis— crazed and tormented in his imprisonment— swinging from the cage above, and a swarm of enraged ghouls, alghouls, scurvers, katakan, and the fleder charging from the front.</p><p class="p1">Up until this point Regis had been attentively listening.His facial expressions would sometimes shift, becoming more grave as the account continued to become more dire.Geralt paused an overlong time at this point in the narrative and Regis sighed.</p><p class="p1">“I understand now the difficult a position I put you in, my friend.”</p><p class="p1">“Regis, even with your propensity to over-analyze everything, there’s no way you could have anticipated all of that.There were too many factors unaccounted for.The tunnels were old and some were even boarded up.The blood previously in the chamber had long dried.Corpse-eaters are opportunistic and don’t claim territory long-term.They shouldn’t have stuck around in such large numbers after the place was abandon.Logic dictates that no more than a half dozen ghouls should have come poking around, not the flood of activity we got.”</p><p class="p1">“And what of the body above ground?It was relatively fresh and you even observed that it was the work of scurvers.Would that not have been cause for caution or even reconsideration, given that such a recent kill would attract dozens more to the immediate area?”</p><p class="p1">“If I paused to worry every time a standard hunt began to look more complicated than it first let on, I would make for a poor Witcher.Any moment of hesitation is an advantage freely given to the opponent.Besides, things were already in motion, there was no time.”</p><p class="p1">“I see.”The response is troublingly succinct with a touch of annoyance, but Regis does not press the matter.His silence weighs heavily but is doubtless a sign for Geralt to continue.</p><p class="p1">“I had no choice.If I’d continued to try and fight, I would have died.And you would have been left in that cage, unable to escape for an indefinite amount of time, maybe forever, smelling whatever remained of me, my blood, drying on that stone floor.I couldn’t let that happen, Regis.With your lifespan, it's a fate worse than death.And you’ve already died before so near completely that without Dettlaff…”</p><p class="p1">He trails off into silence.His eyes had turned down to stare sightlessly at his lap at some point, so it is a bit of a surprise when two hands encircle one of his clenching fists.Thumbs brush the tension away with small comforting movements.The touch is so small but terribly intimate. A moment of shared vulnerability as Regis now joins him on the straw mattress and holds in full regard.</p><p class="p1">He can’t talk about it.Not yet or maybe not ever.The survivor’s guilt that consumed him alive as each of his friends was cut down at Stygga.Watching Regis be unmade right before his eyes.If not for that single-minded focus— the need to see Vilgefortz dead.The need to get Ciri and Yennefer, the last of his dying family, out alive— that he managed to wrestle away from his grief, he would have given up on the spot.To be a Witcher is to know death, but that doesn’t mean that every loss doesn’t weigh heavy, like a millstone around his neck. </p><p class="p1">Not for the first time, words whispered to him in a frozen world make their way back to his mind.<em>Wherever you walk, death and chaos follow.</em>The phantom King of the Wild Hunt spoke not just of those past events in Vizima, but of the path Geralt had willingly walked for years.If the apparition had truly been Eredin or not mattered little, Geralt recognized the truth in the words.They haunted him.</p><p class="p1">“I had no choice,” he repeats, whether to justify the decision to Regis or himself, he couldn’t rightly say.</p><p class="p1">“Then I trust that that was your only option.”The hands holding his give a squeeze of emphasis.</p><p class="p1">Geralt finishes his account as he remembers it through bouts of adrenalin, pain, and panic, culminating in the moment Regis broke free.</p><p class="p1">He keeps the details vague.No need to further the vampire’s guilt by recounting how Geralt had slipped into unconsciousness distressed and resigned to die.</p><p class="p1">Regardless, it is evident that what Geralt didn’t divulge is just as troubling to his friend.</p><p class="p1">“I admit, my recollection of what occurred was a bit of a blur,” Regis confides softly as he gazes down at their joined hands.“The cuffs pained me so, and the scent of blood filled my mind with such a haze…”</p><p class="p1">Regis visibly takes a moment to compose himself.Perhaps attempting to suppress his discomfort.The same reticence he’d displayed along their journey into the ancient vampire dungeon, when questioned about all the uncomfortable history of death and torture of both vampires and humans, resurfaced anew. </p><p class="p1">“I knew your blood as soon as it was spilt.I’d know it even if I’d never fought alongside you before and patched your injuries,” a weighty pause punctuates Regis’ statement.His hands are holding the Witcher’s tight, not enough to hurt, but layered with tension.“But it was different this time, what with the raven’s blood, the sangurium, or, as you speculated, the difficulties of this body being somewhat new and more susceptible to my addiction.Perhaps none of these factors are mutually exclusive.Regardless, I remember going wild.I could practically taste your blood in the air and I knew I had to have it.”</p><p class="p1">“In that bestial state, I’m not sure what I was thinking.It’s just fortunate that the corpse-eaters became the subjects of my more immediate ire upon escaping the cuffs.It was a further bit of luck for you and I that I fell upon the fleder with such ardor, as much as it discomforts me to think about the deeper implications of such.Perhaps doing so had satiated my more pressing thirst because I can remember my singular focus upon turning to you, my friend, had been the need to taste.To consume.To have in any capacity, but without deadly intent.”</p><p class="p1">Regis’ eyes had remained downcast and deeply troubled by his confession.At that moment he looked every day of his over four centuries of age as he battled with his demons.His principles <em>had</em> been shaken before. Regis had slaughtered many at Stygga, and if the blood that Geralt remembered seeing drip from his lips had been anything to go by, had sampled more than a few in his mad frenzy.But Regis is a world-wise and pragmatic fellow, and thus understood that, just as with anyone with an addiction, relapses were a reality of the struggle.</p><p class="p1">This was different though.It hit more deeply to the root of something that neither Witcher nor vampire were ready to examine.And Geralt would have to be an idiot to not also comprehend that vampires don’t typically feed on those they consider friends.At least, none of the various lesser vampires that had been lucky enough to get a bite off on him seemed overly friendly.</p><p class="p1">Geralt rolls his shoulder absently as it gives a sympathetic throb in agreement.The motion upsets their held hands and draws Regis’ attention to said shoulder.</p><p class="p1">“Feel free to decline…but if you’ll grant me, I’d like to check on your wounds.It’s been long enough that they should need redressing at the least.But should this examination make you uncomfortable—”</p><p class="p1">“Don’t give me that, Regis, you’re the one that patched me up in the first place.I don’t think a more competent healer has tended to since, well, you.”</p><p class="p1">“Oh dear, I hope you haven’t been neglecting your health in my absence.” </p><p class="p1">And just like that, the tension is broken. </p><p class="p1">Regis’ touch as he helps Geralt, stiff and sore as he is, remove his shirt and proceed to unwrapped layered bandages, holds the confidence of one that is once more in familiar territory.Geralt even spies a small toothy smile on his friend’s face.</p><p class="p1">Regis examines the shoulder wound with thoughtful, clinical touches, but the way that one hand would often brace the back of the Witcher’s neck or upper arm and give a gentle squeeze left him feeling warm and well-loved in the way that only Regis could.</p><p class="p1">Witchers were not typically known for affection.Indeed, with the general consensus that Witchers were beings stripped of emotion to become ruthless killers, many treated Geralt as no more than a tool.A sword for hire to rid them of their monster problem and then to be cast out of town quickly afterward. </p><p class="p1">With the northern kingdoms so thoroughly ravaged by war the last few years, the number of contracts Geralt had picked up that amounted to “Please, find my lost brother—mother—husband—daughter” or what have you, had skyrocketed.They were his least favorite kind of contract.In his experience, if a person had been missing for the entire time it took for a notice to be posted and a Witcher to be contracted, it was already far too late.If the loved one who posted the notice was lucky, Geralt might come back with a small trinket of the dead to offer some closure, or a the very least, the head of the monster responsible.It was always a depressing affair and he felt for the loved one, truly.But then the matter of coin came up.Just hardly enough to pay for a meager warm meal, for repairs to his worn armor or damaged swords, or to house Roach and himself in a stable and out of the rain for one blissful night.It was always too much to ask that someone pay the Witcher his due.How dare he, that Witcher!He profits off of misfortune!He exploits the poor and the grief-stricken!His purse grows fat on war and death!What could he know of love and loss?</p><p class="p1">Geralt could only rebuff the sentiment that he was unfeeling and emotionless for so long before it became internalized.By the end of his first year on the path, his tentative optimism in the world had been brutally cauterized into cynicism.</p><p class="p1">Of course, there were always those determined to break through his barriers.Dandelion had been a refreshing source of companionship and casual affection for years.It jarred him at first when the vivacious bard first flung a casual arm about his shoulders or would grab ahold of his arms in a friendly manner rather than threatening.It was now more commonplace to expect an embrace from his friend when the occasion called for it, but that was usually after many months apart and a bit of drink.Many friendships since then had followed in this same vein of camaraderie and he cherished each.</p><p class="p1">There were no shortage of occasional lovers in his life that would share a caress.Many were at least curious about Witchers and thus eager to proposition him for a night.This manner of touch, though it was mostly welcome and took the edge off for a time, always left him feeling a bit hollow and bitter in the morning when he was usually back to being treated with contempt.They all wanted a Witcher in the mystique of the night, not in the harsh truth of daylight.</p><p class="p1">Then there were the few long-term relationships in his life.Yennefer and Triss both held his affections.However, as he raced across the continent to save Ciri from the Wild Hunt, his priorities focused on the need to see his daughter safe and sound, the feelings he once held for both sorceresses, with their bitter, jealous rivalry, and manipulations became something he could no longer tolerate.Some part of him will always love both Yennefer and Triss, in their respective ways, but to say they took this rejection lightly would be the words of a fool.He was once again reminded by both women that he was heartless and cruel.Every bit a Witcher in that sense.</p><p class="p1">Ciri was different.Nothing in his near-century of life could have prepared him for fatherhood, or at least the makeshift approximation of fatherhood he’d stumbled into.It could be said that he and his fellow wolf school Witchers were a family, but one mostly held together by a lot of mutual trauma.There was a reason he, Eskel, and Lambert couldn’t ever have a genuine moment of emotional vulnerability without it either resulting and a fistfight or heavy drinking, sometimes both.With Ciri, he had no choice but to reexamine his preconceived notions about the world and choose to be better, for her sake.His love for Ciri was unconditional and boundless.It all but broke him when he’d been forced to let her go, to seek her way in the world.The least he could do was remind her that he was someone she could always turn to when the path became too much, a support for her that he himself never had.</p><p class="p1">And then there was Regis.</p><p class="p1">“I fear these fang wounds will scar.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt is shaken from his musing by this observation. </p><p class="p1">It should matter little, one more scar added to a litany of others.Nonetheless, it is Regis’ destress at such a prospect that gives him pause.To the vampire, it will be a reminder.A visual accusation of his loss of control.It didn’t matter that Geralt refused to see the potential new scar that way, this wasn’t about him.</p><p class="p1">“How is your head?Any clearer?”</p><p class="p1">He gives it a moment of consideration before concluding, “Good.That brew of yours worked wonders.You’ll have to give me the recipe, might work well as a hangover cure.”</p><p class="p1">This brings a small quirk of humor to the vampire’s lips. </p><p class="p1">Lips, Geralt notes absently, that are very near his own. </p><p class="p1">The tips of his ears grow warm at this errant thought.</p><p class="p1">“I have not considered the possibilities of using the elixir as such, but perhaps there is potential in that suggestion.As a point of fact, it is a rather experimental brew, designed to counteract any lingering venom in your bloodstream.”</p><p class="p1">“Venom?”</p><p class="p1">“More just a result of the components of my saliva.There was no active injection or attempted envenomation, it is more of a passive product of a higher vampire’s bite.”</p><p class="p1">Having examined his wounds to apparent satisfaction, Regis begins to wrap them anew in a fresh bundle of gauze.The repetitive motion seems to help him speak on this topic as that of a detached clinician.</p><p class="p1">“Higher vampire saliva carries an anticoagulant component as well as a particularly effective paralytic, for subduing difficult prey.The latter, I suspect, is a vestigial function that served my kind more favorably in our homeworld.Given that in this world, I— we far outmatch our chosen prey in both strength and speed, it seems redundant to also have an incapacitating bite.All that said, I believe it was this component that affected you so strongly. </p><p class="p1">You fell limp in my arms…and your heart was pounding much harder than I’d ever heard it before.When I’d finally snapped out of my crazed state and saw what I had done…I feared the worst.” </p><p class="p1">Here Regis finishes tying off the gauze before regarding the Witcher solemnly.</p><p class="p1">“I would never— could never forgive myself if you died, Geralt.You yourself observers that such a fate for myself would be worse than death.Consider how much worse it might have been if I was the cause.I could not live on from that,” Regis slowly takes Geralt hands back in his own again, holding them fast. </p><p class="p1">“Promise me this will not happen again and I will promise in kind.No more needless self-sacrifice, on either of our parts.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s blood ran cold.</p><p class="p1">He’d been a fool twice over.He’d lived his life understanding that to be a Witcher was to walk a precipice between life and death.That he was ultimately expendable.That for all those that cared for him, loved him, and called him friend, that he would inevitably die out on the path, alone, unburied, food for scavengers. </p><p class="p1">He would be missed and lamented.Ciri would mourn terribly and wonder what it was she could have done to prevent his death because she was a compassionate soul with empathy enough for the whole world let alone a lowly Witcher.If he was lucky, he’d be remembered as a footnote in the lives of others.As an anecdote or as one of Dandelion’s songs. </p><p class="p1">He didn’t delude himself into expecting any more.He would not stop his work as a Witcher just because he knew this was his fate; he’d already tried once before and all that attempt had afforded him was a pitchfork to the gut.</p><p class="p1">But Regis asked something of him that he hadn’t had to suffer since seeing Ciri safely off on her path, departing with her own Witcher’s sword slung over her back.He was being asked to remain alive for the sake of another. </p><p class="p1">For <em>Regis’</em> sake.</p><p class="p1">“I’ll try.”It was the best he could do.But he would try.He would try very hard, for Regis.</p><p class="p1">Regis holds his eyes for a long moment.Perhaps searching his cat-like pupils for the truth of his words. </p><p class="p1">He must finally see whatever it is he searched for because before long he leans forward and softly touches his forehead to Geralt’s own.They holding the connection for the briefest of moments, but it feels like an eternity and it steals Geralt’s breath right from his lungs.It is such a tender gesture that as Regis withdraws Geralt is left with such an acute yearning— to reach forward and draw the other back in— to touch— to kiss— <em>oh.</em></p><p class="p1">But the moment passes, and Regis, as though reading the emotions on Geralt’s face, offers him a bittersweet smile. </p><p class="p1">“I will try also.Rest for now, my friend.The Resonance is brewed, but it can wait.Let us both have a moment to breathe,” Regis says before standing from the mattress and walking away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm playing fast and loose with The Witcher vampire lore here, so don't mind me.  Also, if this wasn't the big moment of emotional catharsis you were hoping for, the good news is there will probably be at least 4 chapters in this fic (if not more).</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">“Do higher vampires often engage in romantic relationships with humans?”</p><p class="p1">He blames the question on equal parts intrusive curiosity and the Resonance still jittering through his system like an ill-timed tic. </p><p class="p1">He’d declined the invitation to wait out the night, and the psychoactive brew’s after-effects, in the crypt.He had imposed on Regis’ hospitality for too long if the barely perceivable pinched weariness about the vampire’s brow was anything to go by. </p><p class="p1">There was also the papers Geralt had found by Regis’ bed.A small collection of hastily handwritten notes under the heading <em>My Last Thought Before I Succumb To Sleep</em>.Much in the way of such aimless musings before rest, the entries range from the philosophical and existential to the deeply troubling.It is, however, the last one that makes him pause.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>“I have a feeling that my friend Dettlaff will die.I am sad.”</em>
</p><p class="p1">The words are simple and yet they weigh on him.Geralt doesn’t know when this thought was recorded, whether before Regis discovered Geralt’s fortuitous entanglement in the plot unfolding around Dettlaff or after.There is nothing accusatory in the statement, just emotion laid bare. </p><p class="p1">He can’t get the words out of his head. </p><p class="p1">Though the papers were not hidden, he fears he has carelessly invaded his friend’s privacy.All at once, he feels like an intruder to this humble sanctuary.That, and also the lingering glances Regis would sometimes get caught up in, staring at Geralt’s healing shoulder with the intensity of the deprived.His presence was causing his friend discomfort and Regis was simply too polite to say anything about it, there was no other explanation.So when Regis returns from collecting herbs in the evening, Geralt makes his excuses and retreats.He has too much to think about and he found it increasingly distracting to remain around the vampire. </p><p class="p1">With the promise that they would both reconvene at the bootblack’s stand in the morning, Geralt made the short walk from Mère-Lachaiselongue proper down to the shoreline where a small boat was docked.Before long, he was sailing at a leisurely pace up the star-lit Sansretour River toward Corvo Bianco and the luxuriant bed that awaited him.</p><p class="p1">On his way, he happened to pass a now-familiar mill upon the west riverbank.For a moment he considered disembarking and investigating the mill of the late Count de la Croix, but the phantom shivers that ran up and down his spine from the Resonance-induced visions gave him second thoughts.He had all but been inside Dettlaff’s head in that moment; he’d experienced the vampire’s rage and pain so acutely that he felt sympathetic pangs of regret just observing the mill from afar, outside the vision’s influence.And so, unwilling to roll over that proverbial rock and acknowledge the things writhing underneath, he sailed on.</p><p class="p1">Now, in the dust-hazed, mid-morning light filtered in through the oculus window (partially obscured by one of Regis’ inquisitive ravens) of the toy-shop come hideout of one Dettlaff van der Eretein, Geralt couldn’t help but look upon the charcoal likeness of a woman lovingly sketched on the wall and wonder.</p><p class="p1">“Often?Well, I suppose that would depend on to what you refer.”Surprisingly, Regis doesn’t seem put off by the change in conversation.Perhaps he too was devoting a certain amount of thought to the subject of his friend’s liaison, or rather, needed a mental sojourn from matters of kidnapping, blackmail, and murder.</p><p class="p1">“If you refer to purely amorous encounters, then yes, such relationships are common enough among our kind just as they are with any other mix of sentient races of compatible anatomy.If, instead, you refer to relationships such as that of Dettlaff and Rhenawedd, no, it is fairly rare for a higher vampire to choose to become mates with a human.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt turns to regard Regis.The answer does not surprise him given that even he, an authority of sorts on post-conjunction beings that many would consider mere myths, once believed all vampires were instinct-driven and base, without the emotional capacity to even care for others.Then he met Regis and had a great many of his preconceived notions challenged.</p><p class="p1">The molted light from the window softens Regis’ care-worn countenance and casts such a depth to his black irides that Geralt can distinguish richly layered, like curling wisps of smoke rising from a hearth. </p><p class="p1">Earlier, it had been strange seeing Regis in on the streets of Beauclair in broad daylight once more.It induced such startling diplopia between the present and the nostalgia of years past that Geralt half expected Cahir, Milva, or Angoulême to walk right up to them. </p><p class="p1">Though there was no denying that Regis was different now.His hair is shorter, grizzled, and thoroughly saturated with grey.The care-worn lines about his face and brow were now as ingrained as the endearing crows-feet that crinkled at every cheeky, knowing smile.The vampire had always been slight, but the strain of regeneration seemed to have sapped what little there was before.Even still, the vampire radiated delight, and Geralt found it infectious. </p><p class="p1">The Witcher vowed then, privately to himself, that once all this ill business with the Beast of Beauclair was done, he would take Regis to Corvo Bianco and they could properly catch up and spend time together.No contracts, no obligations, and no gnawing threats waiting in the wings to spring forth. </p><p class="p1">There would be time then.He was determined; he would <em>make</em> time.He wouldn’t take for granted that he or Regis would always be here like this, with the warmth of the sun, the tranquility of the moment, and small smiles shared between them.</p><p class="p1">How would Regis react if this time it was Geralt who leaned into the other’s space and touched him, forehead-to-forehead, as before… or perhaps more?</p><p class="p1">Luckily, contrary to popular belief, vampires are not mind-readers.Thus, Regis is either ignorant to his friend’s thoughts, conveyed through a lingering stare, or more likely too polite to comment on it, choosing instead to continue the topic at hand.</p><p class="p1">“The obvious challenge is that most would reject us on sight, upon viewing our true forms.Likewise, to attempt to stifle our true nature on any kind of permanent basis for the sake of a partner would be excruciatingly uncomfortable if not impossible to maintain.I pride myself in my ability to ‘blend in’, as it were, among humanity, but slip-ups occur even with the best control.It also does not help that, once we are identified as vampires, we are so vilified, albeit often in humorous, ignorant ways.Most can’t even distinguish higher vampires from our distant lesser cousins.”</p><p class="p1">“Very true.Admittedly, my knowledge of higher vampires, previous to our acquaintance, was solely the fact that they can appear human and little else.Though, on the subject of public misinformation, if it’s any consolation, most still view Witchers as depraved degenerates who abduct children from their beds and derive sexual gratification from killing,” Geralt deadpans with a quirked brow.</p><p class="p1">“Hm, if the latter had any grain of truth I imagine that would make your job particularly…difficult<em>.</em>”Regis makes no effort to hide the hint of fangs in his smile.</p><p class="p1">“Go on, laugh it up.Not like I don’t remember you giving our little hansa an educational lecture on the human penchant to over-sexualize higher vampires and, in particular, phobias regarding certain projected oral-fixations.Ring any bells?”</p><p class="p1">“Indeed,” Regis agrees diplomatically with fondness, “then it is all the more fortunate that we have each other to set the record straight.”</p><p class="p1">Before long, Regis turns back to the charcoal drawing to frown softly. </p><p class="p1">“Whatever the case, such relationships are unique, even if they do only manage to last for a short time, as it seems the case with Dettlaff and Rhena.Vampires don’t form packs, and mate-bonds in particular, lightly.We have our dalliances and friendships, sure, but a bond is a serious matter.It's more than just a family or a relationship; it’s unconditional and meant to be permanent.Higher vampires don’t die except in extraordinary circumstances, so to us permanent means just that.However, humans are not bound by the same rules of convention as vampires, and thus can leave a pack or mate-bond, whether through the conclusion of their short life-spans or capriciousness.The fall-out can be utter devastation to a vampire, and so it is rare that any would dare risk it.”</p><p class="p1">Regis pauses and takes a moment to regard the room at large. </p><p class="p1">It must have been hard, Geralt thinks, for Regis to regenerate and form such a devoted bond with Dettlaff to only ever be able to see his friend suffer from the loss of a mate, helpless to console him.Regis mentioned that Dettlaff had always been a bit more emotionally unstable than most.That instability was doubtless deepened further by the breaking of said mate-bond. </p><p class="p1">No small wonder then that the individual Regis described as kind-hearted and pacifistic would turn to murder if it meant seeing a former mate safe and their bond possibly rekindled.Arguably, Geralt had don’t worse in his various pursuits to see his loved ones safe and sound.</p><p class="p1">All told, it was a macabre narrative.The unfolding pieces of Dettlaff’s puzzling actions came slowlyto light; a missing one-time lover and a third-party secure enough in their power that they wouldn’t hesitate to blackmail such a dangerous apex predator. </p><p class="p1">The clues peter out until all that’s left to go off of is some notes smudged of wine.Even a Witcher’s enhanced senses couldn’t make much of that.It was all too precious little to bring to the duchess, but it would have to do for now.</p><p class="p1">Before he can turn back toward the stairwell and out onto the sun-drenched streets of Beauclair, away to the next thread yet to unravel, Regis reaches out to him. </p><p class="p1">“Geralt, wait—”</p><p class="p1">And in a fluid motion that speaks of unnatural reflexes, Regis has him. </p><p class="p1">Regis’ arm slips around his back in a half embrace, his hand trails up the back of Geralt’s skull as dexterous fingers sliding through white hair, caressing the scalp beneath.He is gently guided forward to meet Regis halfway. </p><p class="p1">Their foreheads touch, just as they did in the dim of the crypt.</p><p class="p1">Though this is the second time Regis has initiated such a contact, the Witcher is no less caught off-guard, the wind leaving his lungs in a shaky exhale.Before, perched upon the healing bed, the touch had been as sentimental as an embrace.This somehow felt more intense.It takes precious moments for his brain to catch up, but when it does Geralt forces his own hand to clumsily return the gesture, shyly brushing the back of Regis’ head before sinking his fingers into the grey strands. </p><p class="p1">Regis makes a small noise at the reciprocated contact.Geralt’s pulse picks up a beat.</p><p class="p1">His hair is soft, Geralt regards with shy reverence, like petting downy fur.</p><p class="p1">He almost chuckles aloud, drunk on whatever this feeling is that makes his limbs tingle.</p><p class="p1">And then Regis’ other hand comes up and slowly grasps his shoulder.The wound is all but healed, only a muscle-deep tenderness remains where the bite-marks linger beneath linen wraps.Even still, Regis’ hold is gentle and solid; held just so that the wound gives off a dull ache but no pain.It is not an unwelcome ache, Geralt decides. </p><p class="p1">He struggles to understand.Clearly, this ritual of touches holds some significance to Regis, but Geralt feels as though he has been handed a message written in an unfamiliar language that he must scramble to translate with an incomplete alphabet.The task is daunting, but he so desperately needs to know the message.</p><p class="p1">“Forgive me.”</p><p class="p1">And as quickly as it all came on, Regis has withdrawn again. </p><p class="p1">Hands that now grip nervously at the strap of a worn satchel leave behind ghosts of warmth on Geralt’s skin.The Witcher’s hand has been fluidly side-stepped and now hangs awkwardly in the air between them.Geralt blinks and lowers it.</p><p class="p1">“Apologies, that was highly inappropriate.”The vampire’s eyes flicker from Geralt’s face to the shoulder that had so recently received his touch.“It was not my place to—”</p><p class="p1">“No, Regis, it’s ok.”</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, it is not.That touch…I presumed.”</p><p class="p1">“Regis.It’s fine, really.It was…” a litany of adjectives come to mind, but because his powers of eloquence could not hope to rival present company, he settles on “nice”, with the additional emphasis, “I liked it.” </p><p class="p1">Luckily, Regis can discern his earnest intent past his awkward words and gradually relaxes, though his hands still flit fretfully.</p><p class="p1">“You are truly a remarkable man, Geralt.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t feel very remarkable.In fact, this glowing compliment seems rather out of the blue.Something he did or didn’t do seemed to upset his friend, and that sat ill with him.</p><p class="p1">He’s about to state as much, but Regis continues quickly with a concluding air.</p><p class="p1">“Wherever next your investigation takes you, I must implore extreme caution.There’s no telling what or who it is that we’re dealing with.If they can take one of my kind and warp them into an unwilling tool, I shudder to think what they could do to you.Be careful, my dear.”</p><p class="p1">He can only nod numbly and accept that his friend wants space.</p><p class="p1">As he walks the slopes of the city toward the castle, that last sentiment, <em>my dear</em>, run circles around his head.</p><p class="p1">The sun is bright enough to hurt.</p><p class="p1"> </p><hr/><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Wormwood, basil, sage, aniseed</em>
</p><p class="p1">Geralt smells him before he sees him.</p><p class="p1">Anna Henrietta’s words fade into the background as the Witcher’s focus turns to approaching footsteps.</p><p class="p1">Regis appears from beside Orianna and Geralt at once feels a swoop delight flutter in his stomach before it is quickly crushed as implications weigh in. </p><p class="p1">What was Regis doing here?Did the talk with Dettlaff go so badly that he sought Geralt out?To warn him?</p><p class="p1">But then another scent catches Geralt’s attention.That of vampire, undisguised by perfumes or herbal aromas.There, another set of footsteps is approaching and a familiar grim shape appears at Regis’ elbow.</p><p class="p1">He can tell Regis is casting glances his way as Dettlaff is introduced to the duchess, but that is peripheral to the Witcher’s focus on the other higher vampire. </p><p class="p1"><em>The Beast of Beauclair</em>. </p><p class="p1">Regis had some explaining to do.</p><p class="p1">“My very dear friend, Dettlaff van Der Eretein—”</p><p class="p1">Ah. </p><p class="p1">A <em>dear</em> friend.Geralt knows logically this is not that time to ruminate about such things, especially with a potentially hostile killer so close at hand, but he can’t help it. </p><p class="p1">
  <em>My dear.</em>
</p><p class="p1">Perhaps Geralt had been projecting his feelings onto the physical encounter he and Regis had shared in the stillness of the toy-shop.If Geralt was dear to Regis on in so far as Dettlaff, someone that the vampire routinely emphasized was akin to a brother given their bond, then the Witcher was reaching and clearly overstepping.Damn him.He was a fucking fool.</p><p class="p1">That’s what Regis’ reaction had been about, it had to be.He had picked up on the fragility of Geralt’s emotional state and tried to recant to save them both embarrassment, and Geralt, like an ass, had misunderstood and doubled-down.He was also a dear friend, and nothing more, that is what Regis had been trying to explain.The affectionate address wasn’t even all that rare in Regis’ lexicon, Geralt had apparently just been desperate for…<em>something</em>.He’s not even sure <em>what</em>.</p><p class="p1">“Witcher, I hear you know Regis, too?Even that you are… friends.”Orianna’s words pour salt in the wound with deadly precision.</p><p class="p1">“Is that so surprising?”Even to his ears, his words come across a little too defensive for such an innocent query.</p><p class="p1">“I never would’ve suspecter Regis to find common ground with… a Witcher.” </p><p class="p1">The words are blithe but they cut him.He’s heard such remarks spoken similarly for close to a hundred years.At least this time the insult is painted as polite curiosity instead of dismissal and disgust, though only just.</p><p class="p1">As ever, Regis is quick to soothe the ruffled situation before it can go completely sour.</p><p class="p1">“Don’t be fooled, dear.Geralt has many merits.He merely hides them from the world very diligently.”</p><p class="p1">This pronouncement rings as excessively charitable, even for Regis’ typical forms of flattery.He appreciates the sentiment though, even if this encounter is quickly becoming one of his least favorites. </p><p class="p1">Perhaps he should have offered to go searching for Cintrian’s body at the base of the hillside; anything to have escaped this.He downs the last of the wine from his goblet, seeking to draw whatever fortification the dregs are willing to offer.</p><p class="p1">But alas, Orianna, as is apparently her want to do, continues to needle him.</p><p class="p1">She poses the hypothetical of a monster hunt, asking what it’s like “knowing you’ve only two options - to kill or be killed?” </p><p class="p1">Her words are laced with double meaning, especially given that Dettlaff takes that moment to sit across from him.Geralt’s suspicions about her are leaning more toward certainty.</p><p class="p1">To retain the peace, he answers diplomatically that attempting to reason with a monster can have its merits.</p><p class="p1">And so, from the words of a monster, Dettlaff takes the opening.</p><p class="p1">“It might want to apologize.For killing.Though at times there is no choice.When loved ones are at risk and require protection.”</p><p class="p1">He’s tempted to throw the apology back in the vampire’s face, to assert that there is no excuse for killing, but he can’t.He’s been in those same scenarios too often to hold any kind of moral impartiality.Geralt can’t even find it in himself to be mad at Dettlaff, because the other, when not lunging at him, claws extended, is perfectly charming and painfully sincere.</p><p class="p1">“Same as humans,” he acquiesces in partial admission.“Put them in that situation, they’ll kill, too.”</p><p class="p1">Golden cat-eyes meet glacial blue.An understanding and an answer.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>“And you?How many innocents have you cut down?”</em>
</p><p class="p1">When he had been asked that question at their first meeting, Geralt had felt indignant that a being whose claws were still dripping wet with Milton de Peyrac-Peyran’s blood could cast aspersion on his character, and so he had sidestepped the question altogether.But the more he learned about and came to know Dettlaff, the more the question, hanging unanswered between them, seemed like an entreatment of empathy from a fellow reluctant killer.</p><p class="p1">Well now, in a way, he’s answered. </p><p class="p1">In Dettlaff, Geralt could too easily see himself and it was uncomfortable to admit.More than anything, it just made him sad.</p><p class="p1">“You understand this… It must be why you and Regis are friends.”</p><p class="p1">There again.</p><p class="p1">So much doubt had been cast on his character tonight that when an out arrives, he grips it with both hands, electing to go and retrieve a new bottle for the table.Spheres know he could use the drink.And to think that Regis had to suffer spectating this conversation sober. </p><p class="p1">Speaking of which, “Wanna help, Regis?Know your wine a lot better than I know mine.”</p><p class="p1">It’s a clumsy excuse for a private conversation, but the others don’t seem to suffer their absence too badly. </p><p class="p1">They’re hardly around the corner when Geralt can’t himself any longer. </p><p class="p1">“Are you crazy?Bringing Dettlaff <em>here?</em>”</p><p class="p1">Regis might have expected just such a reaction, but evidently, this was not the case as the amusement falls from his face and he is awash with alarm.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, allow me to explain—”</p><p class="p1">But he’s too incensed.The whole evening feels like an insult to injury.He’d bungled capturing the Cintrian alive and further prolonged this wild goose chase through the duchy.His methods were being undermined left and right by a monarch who would not leave him alone to his work.And to top it off, he’d been mocked and vexed all night.And while he wouldn’t normally take this all sitting down, he’d kept himself in check, as any boorishness on his part would reflect poorly on Regis.For truly, who knew how many higher vampires and nobles had graced their presence tonight to watch the spectacle? </p><p class="p1">Stress and exasperation were clawing at him and, despite his efforts, it was beginning to show.</p><p class="p1">Damn, he missed the simplicity of a small town’s contract asking that the local drowner population be culled or that a wraith be exorcised from the graveyard.Simple problems with simple solutions, preferably solvable with a silver sword.</p><p class="p1">“No, let me explain.He’s dangerous - and you were going to watch him.”It’s petulant, he knows, but it's the one thing he has in this whole mess that he can justifiably be upset about.</p><p class="p1">He then feels even worse when Regis is quick to assuage his agitation, informing him of what he had already ascertained; that Dettlaff was no threat as long as he and the Witcher had a shared interest.</p><p class="p1">The evening weights on Geralt and he is at once tired in a way that he hasn’t been since hopelessly trekking the continent in search of Ciri.</p><p class="p1">He is going to Dun Tynne.Alone.He says as much.Asserts, in fact, against Regis’ objections.</p><p class="p1">He needs to keep a clear head when addressing the issue of Rhena and the duchess’s sister, Syanna.He can’t risk Regis or Dettlaff’s presence at the coming siege. </p><p class="p1">Right now, there is just too much that distracts him about Regis.And a distracted Witcher was a dead Witcher.</p><p class="p1">Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he spies Regis’ hand, lifted and reaching for that now familiar place on his shoulder, but as he turns to regard the other, the vampire’s grasp is in its usual configuration, wrapped about the strap of his satchel, nearly strangling the leather. </p><p class="p1">Geralt thinks his friend looks bemused, but that’s probably just him projecting again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I headcanon that Regis' hair retains pretty much the same structure and qualities between his bat form and his humanoid form, hence why it's so soft.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">When people argue that Witchers don’t feel emotions, one behavioral example they like to cite is a Witcher’s seemingly unnatural immunity to fear.</p><p class="p1">This is categorically untrue.Witchers do feel fear.The fight or flight response is something so hardwired into the brain that no amount of mutagens could snuff it out.In fact, it would be disastrous to the survival of Witchers if they didn’t know fear, as fear is nature’s strongest motivator for survival. </p><p class="p1">What Witchers do experience is an acceleration of the fight or flight response.If an enemy approaches and the Witcher can meet them to make the first crucial strike, the fight response facilitates this.If the Witcher must back off and reassess a situation and evaluate points of advantage and disadvantage, the flight response kicks in.</p><p class="p1">What a Witcher never does is freeze.They are never paralyzed by fear, they use their fear.It is a response both learned in training and heightened by the trials, and those unfortunate enough to not perfect this response often don’t survive their first year on the path.</p><p class="p1">To human observers, Geralt appears impassive and indomitable; moving through enemies with an unrelenting deftness of whirling blades.</p><p class="p1">A higher vampire, however, would have no trouble detecting the sudden lurch of fear that has him lapse into stillness.</p><p class="p1">To his credit, seeing two bestial figures blink into existence from unnatural mist after having dragged away and eviscerated several armed men— screaming in horror and clawing at the stonework— would have given even the most experienced of Witchers pause.</p><p class="p1">Especially given that Geralt had the unique displease of having had both said vampires attack him, once before.To say that such monstrous forms evoked an instinctual animal hesitation, well, no one would blame him.</p><p class="p1">But perhaps there is some truth to the degeneracy of Witchers because as Regis shifts masterfully from claws extended and snarling visage to a familiar cocksure smile and eyes that shine with mischief, Geralt’s physiology betrays him again.This time with a gut-punch of heat not unlike downing a bottle of Mahakaman spirit. </p><p class="p1">It’s as if, upon being reminded that outside of the extenuating circumstances of Tesham Mutna and perfectly in spite of the bloodbath that had become the outer courtyard of Dun Tynne Castle, Regis has perfect control of his deadlier attributes, something <em>switched</em> inside Geralt.</p><p class="p1">The thought that he wouldn’t mind wiping that smirk off his friend’s lips with the application of his own shoots through his brain faster than a crossbow bolt.</p><p class="p1">He’s <em>so</em> screwed.</p><p class="p1">Luckily, Dettlaff’s single-minded focus keeps them moving.</p><p class="p1">He follows in the wake of the path both vampires carve to the keep.The dozens of armed men before them would have been a formidable force for one Witcher, but Regis and Dettlaff move through the mass with as much ease as their incorporeal mist. </p><p class="p1">They move in tandem, and for all the gruesome sprays of blood and expulsion of organic matter that paints the courtyard, their movements inspire awe and some serious reservation.Geralt felt relegated to the role of spectator as any enemy combatant that manages to approach him, sensing easier prey in the single Witcher rather than the monsters wreaking havoc all about, are quickly razed into pulp by one snarling vampire or another.</p><p class="p1">“Wasn’t expecting to see you two here.” </p><p class="p1">He can’t even feign proper annoyance.He was glad to see Regis, he couldn’t help it.If Regis’ insistence upon his place in the hansa was anything to go by, the higher vampire clearly knew Geralt’s impulse for reclusion, and when to ignore it, better than Geralt himself did.Right now, after their rather sour parting at Orianna’s estate, Regis was a welcome sight.Fighting side-by-side again was a thrill. </p><p class="p1">Dettlaff less so, but the other was starting to grow on Geralt.The ardent vampire’s presence still made him uneasy for the course of the current operation, but he powerless to do anything about it now.</p><p class="p1">To the untrained eye, Regis appears seemingly unfazed by the carnage wrought by the three of them, but Geralt can tell otherwise.Beads of perspiration dot the vampire’s hairline, a physical stress response to the source of his addiction, as Geralt recalls from mere moments after his friend downed the raven’s blood and sangurium concoction.Regis is also very pointedly not breathing.Not inherently worrying, as vampires have no need to breathe as humans do, but Regis has made it so much a habit in his efforts to blend in that, in the time Geralt has known him, it had become a deeply ingrained mannerism.Given the stench of blood bathing the flagstone was probably rich enough to reach as far as Beauclair Palace, Geralt couldn’t blame him.</p><p class="p1">He is offered a somewhat strained smile and a hand reaching to him in greeting.“We thought you could use our help, so—”</p><p class="p1">“There is no time for this.”Dettlaff admonishes as he brushes past, all anxiety wrapped in deadly intent.“Witcher, where is Rhena?”</p><p class="p1">He’s not sure he likes the idea of Dettlaff charging ahead, but suggesting as much probably won’t go over well.</p><p class="p1">“Inside.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt and Regis are only just able to keep up with Dettlaff as they scale the stairs of the castle tower.Thankfully, a guard on the stairs seems the only obstacle turned casualty as they enter the single room at the top.The room is empty of all but the higher vampire and one woman.Given how Dettlaff embraces her and her likeness to the portrait in the toy shop, there’s no doubt this is the missing Rhena. </p><p class="p1">The Witcher knows he should give to reunited couple some privacy, but he can’t help but stare.Small things, observations, aren’t adding up. </p><p class="p1">Rhena seems stiff, awkward, as if she is more embarrassed by the present circumstances than relieved to be freed from her captivity.Of course, everyone reacts to stressful situations differently, and her unease could be due to the fact that she’d very pointedly left Dettlaff for a reason, and seeing him again now might not necessarily be a comfort.</p><p class="p1">And yet, looking around the room this assessment seems ill-fitting.The room is lavish, and if the open window is anything to judge by, too poorly secured to make an effective prison cell.There, a chest is open and items seem hastily thrown inside.In the corner tucked away by the window, his eyes narrow on a carafe.An indrawn breath identifies it as wine, and while he may not have the near-superhuman discernment of the ducal sommelier, he’s willing to bet it’s full of Sangreal.</p><p class="p1">Of course, the most prominent clue of the whole room would be the glaring fact that where the duchess’s sister was promised to reside there is but one woman.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Ergo…</em>
</p><p class="p1">Regis, who up until that moment had been facing the fire and very pointedly not looking at the happy couple in the middle of the room, turns to him as he approaches.</p><p class="p1">“Now we need only find Anna Henrietta’s sister.Where should we look?Do you know?”</p><p class="p1">Geralt is certain that he knows but he must approach the subject with care. </p><p class="p1">He brings up Roderick’s instructions on where to find Syanna and how Dun Tynne’s lord knew nothing of a hostage held in residence.He then points out his observations one by one ending with the incriminating bottle of wine.He can see the moment understanding dawns on both vampires.Regis turns back to the fire, his hands in their customary nervous clutch about the strap of his satchel, his mouth turned down in a tight-lipped frown.Dettlaff’s eyes flicker about, going over and over the various details he had ignored in favor of the fiction he’d bought into— that his long-lost mate was safe and happy to see him once more. </p><p class="p1">It sickens Geralt all the more to think of the words that he and Regis had walked in on. </p><p class="p1"><em>Forgive me.I failed you.</em> </p><p class="p1">Better to lance a wound rather than to let an infection spread and kill.</p><p class="p1">“Sorry, Dettlaff.You’ve been had.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff’s face closes off and he begins pacing the room, wandering, turning this way and that as if lost in a dream.He does not turn to face Syanna or anyone for that matter.To think that this man was ignorant of the duplicitous nature of humanity, only to now have it thrown all at once in his face by one he had trusted, one he had unconditionally given everything for. </p><p class="p1">Before, when his precious Rhena had gone missing from his life there had been a small sliver of hope.Now there was nothing.</p><p class="p1">“Never was any abduction.She faked it to be able to control you, manipulate you.”It was harsh, but someone had to say it.</p><p class="p1">Having her plan stated so brazenly seems to finally provoke a response from Syanna.“You lie!” She hisses at him spitefully.Surprisingly, it seems the first genuine emotion she’s displayed yet.“He seeks to turn us against each other!”</p><p class="p1">“Let… let him speak.”The words are growled and seem to cost Dettlaff all of his self-restraint as he quickly resumes pacing at a more agitated pace.</p><p class="p1">“Blackmailers?Pure fiction.She planned everything.You killed all those men at her behest.”It brings him no satisfaction to lay bare to details of the whole sordid deception, but being a Witcher often meant relaying bad news and Geralt never was so skilled at softening the blow of his words.</p><p class="p1">“Sorry, Dettlaff.She used you.All part of her plan.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt can see the moment where denial turns to anger just as Syanna reaches out to Dettlaff.The reaction that follows is somehow better and worse than he’d expected.Dettlaff whirls on Syanna and pins her several inches off the ground to the wall by her neck.After a tense moment in which Geralt is itching to draw his sword, Syanna is released and Dettlaff gathers his anger back before leaving the occupants of the room with an ultimatum, aiming the words, like knives, at his once-mate—</p><p class="p1">“You will come to Tesham Mutna and explain all.If you do not, I will raze Beauclair to the ground.This I promise you.You’ve three days.”</p><p class="p1">—before vanishing out the open window in curls of dissipating mist and a hissed <em>I’ll be waiting.</em></p><p class="p1">Well, shit.</p><p class="p1">After a beat, Geralt turns to Regis.The time for biases is over, an honest assessment of the situation and damage control is needed now.“Think he’ll do it— make good on his threat?”</p><p class="p1">Regis, for his part, looks grim.“I cannot say,” he admits at last with a slow shake of his head.“He can be unpredictable when fury consumes him.”</p><p class="p1">Probably a vast understatement, but then, the fury of a vampire far outweighs that of a human in terms of expression. </p><p class="p1">“I shall go to him.”Syanna’s words are unexpected, to say the least.</p><p class="p1">“Come again?After what he just…?”</p><p class="p1">“You don’t know Dettlaff like I do.”</p><p class="p1">For some reason, those words rankle Geralt more than they should.To presume that she knew Dettlaff better than Regis— than one vampire bound to another.Then again, Regis had clear difficulty admitting to Dettlaff’s shortcomings and would often minimize the actions that his friend.Regis looked upon each new escalation of Dettlaff’s rage with dismay, but would use his very next breath to extol the other’s virtues. </p><p class="p1">In light of this, perhaps there was some truth to Syanna’s words.If Anna Henrietta’s tale of a childhood prank leading to the destruction of the lives of two brothers was anything to be believed, the young woman knew perfectly well how to manipulate those under her influence.To someone with no scruples regarding the kind of emotional and psychological damage they could inflict, exploiting something so powerful as a higher vampire would be an obvious choice.And so she knew Dettlaff better than Regis, insofar as she knew how to hurt him better, and thus direct his resulting pain at her enemies. </p><p class="p1">But those who did not know how to properly use a weapon were eventually bound to injure themselves, and Syanna was now about to be cut by the weapon she’d made of Dettlaff.</p><p class="p1">“If I don’t do as he says he truly will destroy the city.He’s more than capable of it,” she admits softly, seeming to shrink into herself slightly.</p><p class="p1">“Conscience get to you now?”The Witcher can’t keep the incredulity from soaking his words like sword oil.</p><p class="p1">Syanna at least has the decency to look sheepish.“Better… better late than never, right?”</p><p class="p1">Right.</p><p class="p1">Leaving the tower they find Anna Henrietta waiting in the courtyard outside.At this point, Geralt isn’t even surprised.</p><p class="p1">Terse words are shared between the sisters before Syanna is escorted away by Damien and a contingent of the Ducal Guard.</p><p class="p1">Reporting to Anna Henrietta only furthers an already grave situation.For all her discernment in recognizing her sister’s machinations in regards to the blackmailing scheme as a whole, the duchess is in denial of the fact that her sister <em>is</em> the blackmailer.</p><p class="p1">And then, for reasons Geralt can only in hindsight blame on the precarious physical and mental strains of the night’s events, Regis slips.</p><p class="p1">“Your Grace… I know this vampire and—”</p><p class="p1">“What?”The exclamation cracks the air like a whip.“You know him?Who is he?”</p><p class="p1">Regis hesitates, waring with himself, unwilling to say more but recognizing that discretion fled the scene like a spooked horse as soon as those words were uttered from his mouth.Geralt recognizes the rhetoric.Regis, so use now to assuring Geralt about Dettlaff’s intensions through the evidence of character witness, fell into the trap of familiarity.</p><p class="p1">The beat of silence is damning.</p><p class="p1">“Dettlaff,” he admits at last with the barest hint of a winch about the corner of his eyes.</p><p class="p1">Now that the proverbial vampire was out of the bag, Geralt seizes on a potential out for them all.“He’s waiting for Syanna.If she doesn’t show up to meet him by an appointed time, he’ll destroy Beauclair.”</p><p class="p1">“He dares threaten us?!”The duchess is incensed and while Geralt should have expected this, he had hoped for a more diplomatic reaction.</p><p class="p1">Regis must also see how quickly the situation is growing out of hand.“Your Grace, we have three days to bring him Syanna and—”</p><p class="p1">“Not another word.”</p><p class="p1">And then, another ultimatum, as if they weren’t mired in over their heads enough.</p><p class="p1">“You have three days to bring me his head.No more secrets, no more helping vampires.I want what I’m paying for.The head of the Beast.”</p><p class="p1">With this, they are summarily dismissed.</p><hr/><p class="p1">Regis’ presence is fleeting during those three days as he feverishly tries to hunt Dettlaff down. </p><p class="p1">The Witcher is restless.Any time he seeks an audience with the duchess, to hopefully find her in a calmer mood that is more admissible to reason, he is turned away.He is told to come back either with the Beast’s head or in the time allotted, but to otherwise make himself scarce.Without any word from Regis, all he can do is rest at Corvo Bianco while he can, preparing his gear and restocking his supplies, the latter with a particular emphasis on vampire blade oil and Black Blood potion.The restlessness keeps his mind from fully slipping to sleep with the elapse of each night and he finds that he must resort to meditation to quiet his tremulous mind. </p><p class="p1">Things are looking decidedly grim by late afternoon on the third day.It appeared as Regis once diagnosed it; a higher vampire that did not want to be found was impossible to find, even by their own kind. </p><p class="p1">Geralt recalls Regis mentioning a way to force Dettlaff to appear at a given place and time, but his friend had been adamant against pursuing that course of action.And yet, as the designated hour drew closer, Geralt wonders if the ends might justify any danger.Who knew if Dettlaff would truly make good on his threat— Geralt wasn’t going to try and call that bluff given Dettlaff’s penchant for extreme emotional outbursts.</p><p class="p1">As evening spreads across the sky and he readies Roach to ride to the city and face the duchess’s wraith, a raven alights upon the roof of the stable.Convinced that it must have been sent by Regis but unsure how to properly communicate via corvid, he asks the bird if there is any news, any word at all from the higher vampire.The creature blinks at him, first with one eye, then cocks its head and regards him with the other before altogether ignoring him in favor of preening a stray feather.</p><p class="p1">He answers the raven with a look that has often led lesser men to drop their swords and flee.The raven, apparently made of sterner stuff, puffed up its feathers and proceeded to relieve itself on the stable’s freshly painted roofing tiles. </p><p class="p1">“Ah, you’ll have to forgive his impertinence,” a familiar voice teases from behind.“You see, I’m here now, so he felt it too terribly redundant to disclose my present state of affairs.”</p><p class="p1">Seeing Regis there, standing in the center of Corvo Bianco, with the soft dusk silhouetting his features and leaving the barest hint of a backlit reflective glow to his eyes, at once feels utterly surreal and yet so very felicitous. </p><p class="p1">He at once believes so completely that the higher vampire belongs here insofar as he does.</p><p class="p1">In his mind’s eye, Regis is kneeling in the herb garden, a wide-brimmed hat atop his head as he tends the new growths or sketches their likeness in his notes.There again, Geralt can picture the other enjoying a sunny afternoon looking out onto the fields with a thick academic text propped open in one hand while the other holds aloft a glass of wine.The alchemy lab in the cellar could easily be updated with some distilling equipment.And Toussaint is rarely troubled by inclement weather so perhaps he could clear out space for a fire pit; the thought of sitting before the merrily dancing flames, pleasantly warm and with good company, side-by-side with Regis and sharing drinks and stories beneath the summer stars as they once had so long ago— bending toward each other, with nothing but laughter, mandrake moonshine, and each other shining on their lips… </p><p class="p1">But the more he looks, the more the dream frays before dissolving completely back into the present.</p><p class="p1">Regis is before him now and offers him a smile, but it is tight, strained.He looks haggard, as if the stress of the last week had reversed whatever progress of regeneration he’d achieved before arriving in Beauclair.His complexion is more ashen and deep bruises encircle sunken eyes, no doubt the product of days of none-stop searching for an impossibly evasive target. </p><p class="p1">Vampires, as a rule, were much hardier than humans, but even they needed time to rest, time to eat and sleep and take in the energy necessary to continue living.</p><p class="p1">He can’t help but take all this in and frown.“I take it you don’t have good news.”</p><p class="p1">“Alas, I do not.Our quarry remains ever elusive,” Regis admits with a huff.“I have come to accompany you to see Her Grace and perhaps help communicate the severity of the situation at hand.If all goes well, we may still be able to escort Syanna to her rendezvous with Dettlaff before any drastic actions are taken by either party.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt can’t help but raise both eyebrows at that.</p><p class="p1">Regis answers his skepticism with a weak smile.“I suggest we leave forthwith as the light will only hold so much longer, and we have two very important appointments to keep.”</p><p class="p1">This all seemed far too charitably optimistic by Geralt’s estimation, but then again, he was prepared for the worst, just in case.</p><hr/><p class="p1">To say that the swarm of vampires, enough to rise above the towers of Beauclair thick as midges and a thousand times more deadly, was something Geralt was not entirely prepared for would be a class-act understatement.When Dettlaff had promised a razing, the Witcher pictured an army of lesser vampires about a hundred or so strong. </p><p class="p1"><em>This</em>, the force of which distorted the very cityscape en mass, was an all-out <em>war</em>. </p><p class="p1">Any sane ruler looking upon their city beset by monsters would have quickly come to terms with the glaring inadequacy of their capabilities to fight such a force, especially when a Witcher stands before them and professionally asserts the futility of such action.But Anna Henrietta is every bit the embodiment of pride and delusion that is foundational to Toussaint.</p><p class="p1">“If it’s war this Dettlaff wants, it’s war he shall have.”</p><p class="p1">The sheer triviality of her threat is made all the more apparent as a bruxa makes itself known upon the place steps, casually gorging on the carotid arterial blood of ducal guardsmen like wine at a banquet.</p><p class="p1">Geralt dispatches the bruxa easily enough, but the process would have gone more smoothly had the remaining guardsmen not enclosed the area in a ring of bodies and mindlessly shot crossbow bolt after bolt at a monster who by its very nature could turn invisible to the unmutated eye and sprint at speeds even Geralt couldn’t track. </p><p class="p1">The Witcher found himself dodging errant projectiles meant for the bruxa just as often as he dodged swiping claws.If this didn’t demonstrate the ineffectual nature of the duchess’s knights and guardsmen against preternatural beings, watching a few unlucky men be torn asunder by the bruxa’s scream alone makes it all the more soberingly apparent.</p><p class="p1">It has all gone too far, and the further things are allowed to spiral out of control, the more casualties the night will claim.</p><p class="p1">He sees this same realization harden into resolve upon Regis’ face as the higher vampire approaches.</p><p class="p1">Geralt does not envy his friend the position he has been put in.To be adrift between one friend and another, loyalties constantly on the verge of division.He is no doubt horrified by the actions of Dettlaff and unable to stand idly by and condone said actions, but unwilling to compromise when comeuppance is due. </p><p class="p1">Geralt wonders not for the first time what it was about himself that Regis inherently trusted over Dettlaff.It was no small thing to stand with alongside a natural monster-hunter rather than one’s own blood-bound kin.What made the Witcher— a glorified human who was remade in the image of a monster, but to true monsters was but a grotesque amalgamation, a mockery of true monstrosity, with a silver sword that, to a higher vampire, stings no more than a bug bite, with his dull senses and his paltry magics— someone worthy of trust?Someone worth fighting for?</p><p class="p1">But speculation at this juncture is pointless.Dettlaff’s actions have gone above and beyond inexcusable.The time for action is now. </p><p class="p1">“Regis… you mentioned there was a way to draw Dettlaff out, a way you’ve avoided resorting to so far because you thought it too dangerous.”</p><p class="p1">Regis glances up with a look that is carefully measured.“I implore you, my friend, to consider the alternative.You could fulfill Dettlaff’s demand and liberate his beloved Syanna.”</p><p class="p1">He can’t help but feel that Regis is laying it on a bit thick with terms such as ‘liberate’ and ‘beloved’.They’d both been in the same tower room of Dun Tynne, had they not?Seen the doting worry turn to fury?</p><p class="p1">“Think Dettlaff still believes Syanna’s innocent?”Surely Regis couldn’t be so in denial.</p><p class="p1">“I believe he suspects something,” Regis says, pointedly.“He must.And he seeks to understand what happened.”</p><p class="p1">“And for that, he’s declared war on the entire duchy?”Geralt emphasizes his point with a sweeping gesture to the mangled corpses about them, thickening the air with the copper tang of blood.“Really want to free Syanna and hand her over to Dettlaff?Refuse to accept you consider that wise.”</p><p class="p1">“It’s hard to believe, I know…” Regis starts, then sighs before regarding him with a world-weariness that seems to age the vampire terribly.“But… Dettlaff is not actually evil, merely impulsive.He needs but meet with her, speak with her… and he will spare the city.This, I promise you.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt hates to cast doubt on Regis’ words, but too much has happened in the last week to not consider a contingency plan.“The meeting - what if it’s nothing like you say?What if it goes sour… ends in a fight?Willing to guarantee Syanna won’t get hurt?” </p><p class="p1">It’s a low-blow and more than a little emotionally manipulative, he knows this, but he’d rather not wait till the matter is forced to know where Regis stands.</p><p class="p1">Regis, for his part, seems incredulous, if not a little hurt by the suggestion.“It seems unlikely in the extreme that—”</p><p class="p1">“Didn’t ask for a lecture on probability.Need a simple answer - yes or no.”Geralt’s words curt even to his ears, but with every moment Regis circles to issue, he can hear the blood-curdling screams from the city rise in pitch.</p><p class="p1">“I vow that not a hair on her head shall come to any harm,” Regis agrees, looking Geralt in the eyes with grim certainty.</p><p class="p1">After that point, his course of action has narrowed to two possible objectives— force Dettlaff to appear, a decision that would inevitably lead to conflict, or whisk Syanna away to Tesham Mutna, an option that too much resembled offering the young woman up as a sacrifice for comfort.Now to find Damien or Orianna— and the subsequent paths both signify.</p><p class="p1">“You know what I would opt for,” Regis inputs.“Should we take Syanna to Tesham Mutna, there’s a good chance we’ll all survive this ordeal, Dettlaff included.”</p><p class="p1">Which is as good as saying that Dettlaff probably would not survive should Geralt choose wrong.He can feel a headache forming, and it has little to do with the last three days of missing sleep.</p><p class="p1">Geralt hesitates, opens his mouth, then closes it into a frown.He’s already gained assurance from Regis, no need to burden his friend more with hypotheticals and his own fucked up indecision.</p><p class="p1">But Regis must feel acutely the gravity of his sudden unwillingness to speak his mind. </p><p class="p1">“Geralt?”</p><p class="p1">Well…</p><p class="p1">“Regis… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I need to know - say I do decide to fight Dettlaff, who’ll you stand with?” </p><p class="p1">A wealth of emotions pass over the vampire’s face in the span of a moment before settling somewhere close to grief-stricken.Geralt hates this, hates that he’s done this, put his friend in such an impossible position.He wishes he could retract the question as his friend eventually answers.</p><p class="p1">“Should you decide your sword is the sole solution, I shall not stand in your way.”</p><p class="p1">They are both silent as those words sink in.</p><p class="p1">“Now please tell me… what is it you intend to do?”</p><p class="p1">But he cannot offer his friend any closure— not honestly.“No idea, I need to think.” </p><p class="p1">His indecision in the face of the promises he’d wrung from Regis, for all the naked vulnerability that the other displayed in the interest of mutual trust, feels like an act of betrayal.And yet he cannot disrespect his friend by taking this decision lightly.</p><p class="p1">Regis must understand this as he seems to appreciate Geralt’s honesty.Perhaps he’d all but given up on the possibility of his suggestion even being considered.</p><p class="p1">“Permit me to leave you to wrestle with this dilemma.I’m needing in the city.I cannot stop what is happening, but I can try to limit the number of victims,” Regis says, laying a hand upon Geralt’s shoulder.The gesture is carefully casual to any nearby observers, but Geralt’s focus narrows to the point of contact with due significance.“Once you’ve decided… and learned something, perhaps, whisper a word to the ravens.I shall find you.”</p><p class="p1">Regis is about to turn away but he stops short.The hand on Geralt’s shoulder squeezes tightly and the vampire’s eyes reflect the dim light with an internal glow that the Witcher finds achingly endearing.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, and Geralt, <em>please</em>, be careful out there.I… need you.”</p><p class="p1">And with that, Regis turns and hurriedly walks away before turning to mist once beyond the sightline of the ducal guard.Geralt watches the mist dissipate into the night until he can no longer distinguish its smoky curls from the heavy shadows of bat-like silhouettes flying overhead.</p><hr/><p class="p1">Running into the city proper, he is confronted by a war-zone the likes of which he has not seen before.The claustrophobic streets of Old Vizima given way to the bitter bloodshed and the massacre at Loc Muinne both attracted comparison in this regard, but those slaughters had been armies fighting armies. </p><p class="p1">This was something else.</p><p class="p1">This was brutality the likes of which Geralt had only ever witnessed on a small-scale. </p><p class="p1">Monsters were often pragmatic hunters, going after humans for food or to defend territory.Occasionally the odd small village would be overrun, but it was always for environmentally practical purposes— necrophages attracted to bloodshed, insectoids looking to populate a nearby cave system, draconids, rearing young, picking off livestock. </p><p class="p1">This, however, was animalistic revelry. </p><p class="p1">This was mass destruction for destruction’s sake. </p><p class="p1">Most of the corpses that Geralt swiftly passed did not even show evidence of having been fed on, rather, their blood left to froth through the gutters freely undisturbed.This was a spree that Geralt doubted even Dettlaff could have fully anticipated let alone put a stop to now that it was started.</p><p class="p1">Everywhere he went, the choking smoke of fires and the shrill screams of civilians coupled with the bestial cries of monsters intermingled.He was left running into the fray, unsure of which way to turn, where to go, who to help.It was all so maddening.</p><p class="p1">Witcher’s do not freeze when fear consumes them, that is the rule written into their survival.Yet, now as Geralt is surrounded by the enormity of the carnage engulfing the city, crushing him with the undeniable knowledge of how very small he and his capabilities are by comparison, he is paralyzed by fear in a way he hasn’t felt in years.</p><p class="p1">He was only just able to intervene and prevent a massive garkain from spilling the guts of several guardsmen just beyond the bridge to the city proper. </p><p class="p1">Beyond that, he slows down for the briefest moment as a knight on the path before him crawls forward across the flagstones one-handed— as the place where the other would have been is but a gape of blood and viscera— before collapsing never to move again. </p><p class="p1">Down smoke-filled street-ways, he arrives at the scene of a little girl, cowering away from a bruxa menacingly stalking toward her, a fang-filled smile twisting its face.In the confusion, slaying the bruxa costs him precious time.When he turns to where the girl was, she has vanished into the smoke.<em>To become something else’s prey</em>. </p><p class="p1">Fleders and katakans abound, usually at the center of piles of freshly rent bodies or hanging upside down from alcoves with blood streaming from bared fangs. </p><p class="p1">A man atop a building flags him down and pleads for his aide, only for a winged form to swoop down and carry him off, ropes of blood splattering the street as the pair fly past.Geralt cannot even stop to give this horror the proper reception it deserves as just around the corner he hears a garkain give a hunting squeal. </p><p class="p1">The monster is hunched over trying to fit its gnarled limbs beneath a wagon— its prey, Geralt discovers upon dispatching it, is a small boy.Unable to do more for the child, he advises him to stay put and hunker down till dawn, breathing slowly so as to not attract attention.He feels the crushing weight of inadequacy again, to leave a child defenseless, mere feet away from the bodies of those he’d probably known his whole life and the corpse of the monster that slaughtered them.His only companions now are the blistering heat of nearby fires and the screams that echo through the city.</p><p class="p1">In the end, perhaps it is this helplessness, this hopelessness in the face of all that Dettlaff has wrought that unconsciously guides his feet to a familiar door. </p><p class="p1">When he gathers the last shreds of his fortitude and confronts Orianna, she hardly seems all that surprised to see him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello all, quick update.  About halfway through writing this chapter, I injured my hand in a work-related accident.  The good news is that I can still type reliably without any pain.  The bad news is that the process of typing has now become unbearably slow and more than a little awkward.  All that is to say, the next chapter is going to take a bit of time, apologies in advance.</p><p>Just wanted to take this moment to thank everyone for the kudos and comments, I see every single one and I appreciate it like you wouldn't believe.  Y'all make my day.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Fyi, this chapter uses a lot of time-skipping.  Time-skips between the past and present are separated with an independent ellipsis (...)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Of the vampires a Witcher might have the misfortune to face on the path, bruxae were among the most dangerous.Their speed alone made them a deadly foe, but couple that with their invisibility and these creatures earned the reputation of being a blight on humans and Witchers alike.If your village was unlucky enough to be plagued by a hunting pair or pack of bruxae and all seems hopeless, you are not without luck, for any Witcher worth his salt can dispatch them competently, for only the weakest of these creatures gather in groups, and were thus more nuisance than dangerous.</p><p class="p1">It is the lone bruxa that is feared most.</p><p class="p1">One lesser-known quality of bruxae is that of their song.It holds a more insidious danger than their scream.Their nocturnes often follow a blood meal and are used to manipulate the mind of the listener, often to the effect of inflicting debilitating nightmares and daytime delusions.</p><p class="p1">And yet, the songs themselves, often sung in the vampiric tongue, were oddly beautiful.</p><p class="p1">Thus was the case with Orianna’s song.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Wolves asleep amidst the trees,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Bats all a swaying in the breeze,</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">The song is intended for the child, to ease his nerves in the wake of the attack. </p><p class="p1">Or so Geralt thought.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>But one soul lies anxious wide awake,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Fearing all manner of ghouls, hags, and wraiths.</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">As he hunts, tracking the beast that massacred the orphanage, doubtless lured from the legion assaulting the city by the scent of children, the lullaby follows him and whispers sweetly in his ear.</p><p class="p1">He sharpens his senses and focuses on the signs before him.</p><p class="p1">Pawprints.Bipedal beast.Walks hunched over.</p><p class="p1">A child’s corpse.The wounds are smooth-edged… the claws cut through cleanly.Young, thin bones offered little by way of resistance.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>For your dolly Polly, sleep has flown,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Don’t dare let her tremble alone.</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">He grits his teeth and examines a substance splattered on the stonework steps.The smell, a mix of blood and something acrid.He catches the scent on the air and follows the trail further beyond the walls.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>For the Witcher, heartless cold,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Paid in coin of gold,</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">The melody twines with the smell of spilt blood and venom that saturates a body propped against the fence of the horse hitch.Roach stares at him impassively between mouthfuls of pilfered hay as he considers the evidence thoughtfully piecing together the sequence of events in his mind’s eye.</p><p class="p1">Venom glands, long claws, a bloodsucker… most likely a garkain, and an old, experienced one at that.</p><p class="p1">The prints trail off down the road, following a pair of freshly churned wheel ruts.Given that none of the bodies Geralt had discovered up till that point were adults, it stood to reason that the orphanage’s guardians, Arnaud and his wife, fled the scene in terror, hoping the children would serve as more enticing bait.Likely the only thing their frantic escape achieved was attracting the attention of the beast, promoting it to give chase.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>He comes, he’ll go,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Leave naught behind</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">He mounts Roach and follows the wagon grooves as they careen off the path and down a steep embankment, leading to the shoreline of the Sansretour—</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>But heartache and woe.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Deep, deep woe.</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">—and directly to the scene of a second slaughter. </p><p class="p1">It’s just his luck that the beast in question isn’t just an exceptionally experienced garkain, but an alpha, an apex predator among vampiric kind.The only thing Geralt has going for him is the likelihood that the beast would surely be in a state of lethargy after its overindulgence.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Birds are silent for the night,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Cows turned in as daylight dies,</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">He follows the splatter trail to the underside of a bridge where the beast resides, lazily hanging from the stonework, its stomach distended with blood. </p><p class="p1">It’s none too happy to see him.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>But one soul lies anxious wide awake,</em>
</p><p class="p1"><em>Fearing all manner of ghouls, hags, and wraiths.</em> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">Perhaps it's the sleepless nights, the stress and uncertainty, the hopelessness of it all as the city burns— its flames illuminated by the smoke that rises red above and the bells tolling without end.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps it's Orianna’s sweet song, for he is certain now that she’d ensnared him too in the influence of her lullaby.To slow him and distract his senses for all but the briefest moment the garkain needs to strike.It wasn’t all that hard to imagine that she devised for the beast and the Witcher to finish one another off.Two annoyances gone in one turbulent bout.</p><p class="p1">And it was nearly so. </p><p class="p1">The alpha dodged past the whirl of his blade and attacked his shoulder at the spaulder.Its fangs glanced off the reinforced grandmaster armor, but the position was too recently familiar for comfort.A clawed hand whips around and locks his head in a grasp, wrenching his neck back at an angle in an effort to direct snapping jaws toward vulnerable flesh.The cold knowledge that Regis wouldn’t be racing to his aid this time hangs over his head with the sanguine heat of the beast’s breath.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>My dear dolly, Polly, shut your eyes,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Lie still, lie silent, utter no cries.</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">A sickening crack and a scream of fury. </p><p class="p1">The angle may have been bad for a sword, but the swipe he delivers to a sensory node on the garkain’s head elicits a satisfying enough reaction.It withdraws rapidly, wrenching its mouth from him— a bloody string of saliva connects them where his neck was successfully nicked, before snapping as the vampire makes rapid aborted gestures at its ruinated flesh. </p><p class="p1">Pressing his advantage, Geralt aims a blast of igni at the retreating form and maintains the stream of oppressive fire until he is panting with exertion.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>As the Witcher, brave and bold,</em>
</p><p class="p1"><em>Paid in coin of gold.</em> </p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">The alpha garkain is reduced to a charred mewling wreck, but not before it lashes out one last time.</p><p class="p1">He catches the claws in his blade’s crossguard and severs several digits on the downward swing.</p><p class="p1">The beast bellows in rage and the Witcher takes measure and thrusts his silver sword down its gaping maw and through the back of its head.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>He’ll chop and slice you,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Cut and dice you,</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">He mounts the head on Roach’s saddle and makes his way back to the orphanage with due haste.Even still, he is not quick enough to prevent a vampire attack of altogether a different kind. </p><p class="p1">It is not the time or the place.He accepts this, though grudgingly.</p><p class="p1">And though she would hide behind a child who naively exchanged blood for acts of kindness wrapped in emotional manipulation, the press of the small body between him and Orianna stayed his sword, for now. </p><p class="p1">He’d return for her, one day.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">And he does.Through countless nightmares and embittered years, in the ruins of what once was La Compassion Orphanage. </p><p class="p1">This time, her apathy for human life and her insatiable appetites were her ultimate undoing. </p><p class="p1">As for the Witcher, his dreams, though tormented by many other dark things, were at last free of her song.</p><p class="p1"> </p>
<hr/><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">He catches the fluttering of wings out of the corner of his eyes now and again as he makes his way to the palace boat landing.Though most of the raven’s had left, to seek out Regis, a handful remained overhead, watching him, acting as proxy chaperones and little shadows to his movement through the ravaged streets.</p><p class="p1">Standing on the creaking wood of the dock, he numbly considers the keystone Orianna gave him— the only favor she’d grant a Witcher even amidst all this chaos.The stone, adorned with a carving of the bloody hand of the Gharasham, feels oddly warm in his hand.He pockets the artifact as the ravens keeping him company suddenly take flight.Their departure heralds a familiar figure manifesting from the mist.</p><p class="p1">The two regard each other. </p><p class="p1">There is a distance between them and Geralt felt the impulse to close it, but his body shudders with tension and his muscles feel as though they won’t support him should he attempt to disrupt the stillness.The ambient light is such that he can decipher the solemnity of the other’s countenance in the gloom, but not the details.</p><p class="p1">It begins to rain. </p><p class="p1">Regis opens his mouth to speak… but something is off. </p><p class="p1">Geralt frowned, trying to make out the soft words that run counter to the vampire’s lip movements, with a voice that is nothing like the light, scholarly intonation for which he had a terrible fondness. </p><p class="p1">The words grow in strength and repetition and carry an edge of panic that contrasts with their speaker’s demeanor.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>wake up witcher</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Wake up Witcher</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1"><em>“</em>Wake up, Witcher!”</p><p class="p1">His eyes shoot open.</p><p class="p1">A bright sky veined through with enormous tree branches like curled-down-claws, greets him with all the cheer of a fist slamming between his eyes. </p><p class="p1">He jerks reflexively at the sound of cackling and barely manages to dodge-roll out of the way just as a crone-like figure swoops down and lets loose another cauldron full of acid.The foul brew splashes back up and droplets dapple the skin of his face with burns that ripping-sting with all the caustic heat of an archespore’s bite.</p><p class="p1">Rising from the ground, he lists dangerously on unstable legs as the acid eating at him, coupled with the pounding in his head, causes his eyesight to blur in pain and his skull to throb with his pulse.</p><p class="p1">The Wicked Witch sees his moment of weakness and seizes the opportunity to hit him again.However, this time he’s ready.As she arches through the air on course to drench him once more, he hits her with aard which knocking her cleanly off her broom. </p><p class="p1">He dispatches her quickly after that, taking no small measure of satisfaction in the screams, wails, and shrieks that remind him too much of some other crones.</p><p class="p1">It takes a solid moment to reorient himself, still a bit dazed from the suddenness of… well, everything.</p><p class="p1">The air here is thick with the headiness of hundreds of blooming plants, their pollen thick in the air, and the cloying scent of sweet things.Everywhere he looks, the saturation of colors overstimulate the senses in almost offensive ways, adding to the pounding behind his eyes.Songbirds of every kind, some of unknown origin, other of downright impossible origin, all harmonize together and serenade in an increasingly intricate fashion. </p><p class="p1">All wrapped together in the oppressive gravity of unstable magic. </p><p class="p1">It was only fitting that he should find Syanna in a world of illusion even more zealously saccharine than Toussaint itself.A pretend world inside a pretend world.Both rapidly crumbling to the entropy of encroaching reality. </p><p class="p1">A coating of child-like wonder and innocence to disguise a long-festering wound.</p><p class="p1">“Felicitations, Witcher.You’ve won.Though, it seems she left you somewhat worse for wear.”Her words drip with mockery, though she wastes little time on him in favor of rummaging through the pockets of the Wicked Witch to retrieve a key.</p><p class="p1">That’s all well and good by him.He has no trouble relaying that he’s not here for her sake, but rather for the sake of Beauclair.For the countless innocents whose lives were still in danger or had already met their end because of Dettlaff’s wrath, Anna Henrietta’s pride, and <em>her</em> treachery.</p><p class="p1">Syanna, for her part, seems to accept his bluntness and the offer he puts forth— to be her ally and see her safely through the Land of a Thousand Fables.She would gain her freedom from Anna Henrietta’s imprisonment and he would be one step closer to putting an end to this whole mess.</p><p class="p1">But because obstinance seems a prevailing trait of the ducal family, Syanna can’t help a level of waspishness. </p><p class="p1">“You exposed me.I landed in prison because of you.Now you come to beg my help, I daresay?My, life is full of surprises, isn’t it?” she shakes her head with churlish theatrics.“Normally, I’d tell you to sod off.But, from what you say, folk are dying who have nothing to do with this.Not part of the plan.Dettlaff was only to kill those who deserved it.No one else.”</p><p class="p1">He wants to laugh in her face.To think that she was judge, jury, and executioner, even now when the illusion of her control of the situation was thoroughly dispelled. </p><p class="p1">That she fancied she could denote who deserved to be killed and who didn’t. </p><p class="p1">That she could recklessly wield a complex thinking and deeply feeling being; to drive Dettlaff to shed blood and then… <em>and then</em> had the <em>gall</em> to be surprised when the blood flowed beyond her measure.</p><p class="p1">But for their tentative alliance, he keeps his mouth shut.</p><p class="p1">Besides, as he’d learned over the years with many figures of self-imposed entitlement, they loved the sound of their own voice almost as much as they loved a captive audience to divulge in.</p><p class="p1">And so, with little fanfare, she told him the sordid tale of her banishment.How the knights— Crespi, du Lac, la Croix, Peyrac-Peyran— had escorted her into exile beyond the borders of the duchy, into the harsh wilderness. </p><p class="p1">They’d left her, beaten and bloody, hungry, and without a scrap of warm clothes between her and the winter chill.How the experience, and all the bitterness she’d experienced from birth, had hardened her and given her the cruel edge she’d needed to survive. </p><p class="p1">It was a narrative not unfamiliar to Geralt, not only for how it mirrored the sentiment of too many Witchers, but also that of the one other princess born under the Curse of the Black Sun he’d met. </p><p class="p1">How many, like Stregobor, proposed elimination?And when that didn’t work, isolation and imprisonment?Treating these young women with derision and placing them in inhumane situations only to look upon their fostered resentment and hatefulness as further evidence of an evil innate to the very core of their beings. </p><p class="p1">He remembers his words to Renfri; the heated discussion in the attic room of the alderman’s house in Blaviken, how he had naively spoken of evil in the absolute terms of his Witcher sensibilities.How he’d disregarded her pain and patronized her plight.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>“I’m not going to let it come to a slaughter here.So, for the second time, renounce your revenge.Prove to him, to everyone, that you’re not an inhuman and bloodthirsty monster.Prove he has done you great harm through his mistake.”</em>
</p><p class="p1">As if a mage, obsessed with hunting down cursed princesses, would have ever relinquished his self-righteous moral superiority and admit a mistake. </p><p class="p1">She’d looked at him then with something he couldn’t quite identify at the time.Now he knows.By asking her to give up, to give in and fall into line, the ignore all the hardship she’d faced for some arbitrary sense of ‘proving’ herself innocent, he’d become like every other heartless spectator to her debasement.</p><p class="p1"><em>“And if I tell you, Witcher,”</em> Renfri replied through the creep years,<em> “that I can neither forgive Stregobor nor renounce my revenge then I admit that he is right, is that it?I’d be proving that I am a monster cursed by the gods?”</em></p><p class="p1">He’d treated her as a Witcher would any other problem, with the bluntness of absolutism.</p><p class="p1">And yet, as she’d predicted, he never completely knew if he’d been right.</p><p class="p1">And now, here was Syanna, like the apparition of Renfri’s death staring back at him from the ossuary of his many regrets.</p><p class="p1"><em>How fitting</em>, he thinks wryly as he follows Syanna through the fableland, <em>that here now is another princess cursed by the Black Sun and a Tridam ultimatum well underway.</em> </p><p class="p1">Only the promise that days and weeks in the Fablesphere translate into mere minutes in the real world help to preserve his composure.</p><p class="p1">Unbidden but not unwelcome, his mind returns to Regis.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">“You’ve met with Orianna,” Regis starts, his voice carefully neutral.There is no accusation in the words, but the frown that has recently grown accustomed to the vampire’s expression cannot be missed.“How did it go?”</p><p class="p1">Absently, Geralt regards the rain licks at the grazed wound on his neck, following through touch the path of water dribbling down his collar.Regis’ eyes barely move, catching the rivulets progress, before returning to the Witcher’s face.</p><p class="p1">“Badly,” he admits with abject exhaustion.</p><p class="p1">“Oh?Did she not divulge where you might find the Unseen?”</p><p class="p1">“No, she did,” Geralt says slowly, eyeing the other thoughtfully.“Also divulged her hunger for the blood of small children.”</p><p class="p1">“I… admit I’d heard rumors, but preferred to lend them no credence.”</p><p class="p1">“Rather not talk about it,” he says after a pause, because if anything, Regis looks now even more tired than Geralt.Between the two of them, the events of this one week probably aged them a combined hundred years. </p><p class="p1">The rain continues to pour in a way that is atmospherically uncommon to the perpetual clear skies of Toussaint.It punctuates the stillness and offers a quiet peace. </p><p class="p1">And while the Witcher is a shade in dark water, colorless and cold, Regis stands before him as untouched by the climate as if he was still mist.The tousles of hair about his head and face flutter endearingly in the wind, refusing the weight of the water that drips from his face. </p><p class="p1">He continues, half to distract himself from the impulse to touch those soft, unfettered wisps.</p><p class="p1">“The cave is west of town, other side of the lake.That’s where we need to go.”</p><p class="p1">“I see.”</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">“Hey!Where’d you get that ribbon?That’s mine!”</p><p class="p1">His thoughts come back to the present just in time to watch Syanna trying and intimidate another denizen of the fairytale realm.This one appears to be just a child, though her patronizing usage of ‘sweeties’, ‘sweetheart’, and ‘dears’ is indicative of the slow cynicism chafing at the edges of this place.</p><p class="p1">“The ribbon - mind explaining what the fuss is about?”If this had nothing to do with securing their escape, what did it matter what vestiges of the past remained locked in this timeless, decaying place?</p><p class="p1">“There’s not much to explain,” Syanna admits with a huff.“I got it from Artorius Vigo when I was a child.It was to protect me from evil.”The sting of the past is clear in the tension of her frame.“It clearly didn’t work, given how I ended up…”</p><p class="p1">“But it means a lot to you.”That was apparent given her reaction to the tiny strip of dirty fabric.</p><p class="p1">“How should I put this… I have so few mementos from my childhood.The ribbon reminds me of the good old days… when I was someone else.”</p><p class="p1">He could sympathize, truly.All that is left of his childhood are tortured memories and a crumbling keep in upper Kaedwen. </p><p class="p1">That said, given that the Fablesphere itself was a memento of her childhood, and a reflection therein… it was neither the time nor the place.A bitter part of him felt that Syanna needed to mature past the point of the spoilt child she still approximated and let this illusion go.But that was not for him to decide. </p><p class="p1">He didn’t begrudge her memories and nostalgia, but priorities took precedent. </p><p class="p1">Perhaps, when all was said and done, and if she and Anna Henrietta could put their differences aside and find forgiveness, the two sisters could return here someday.Then they would have all the time in the world to reach a place of healing and rediscover the good old days of a childhood lost.</p><p class="p1">The ribbon could wait till then; it wasn’t going anywhere.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">Regis’ gaze is downcast as he says, “I’m prepared to set out at any time, but…”</p><p class="p1">“I know.You’d still prefer to free Syanna - for Dettlaff’s sake.”</p><p class="p1">“For the sake of you both.”</p><p class="p1">Their eyes meet again, and, after a moment, Regis manages a small self-deprecating smile, despite the circumstances.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, please,” Geralt bites out.He knows he’s being unfair, lashing out, but he just couldn’t hold back any longer. </p><p class="p1">“The orphanage, what happened there— that was his fault, plain and simple.City gutters are overflowing with blood— that’s his doing, too.And you’re worried somebody might’ve hurt his feelings?”Regis was in the thick of it.He’d been in the city— full witness to the havoc his packmate had wrought, but the meager admittance he’d offered up to Geralt offensively trite. </p><p class="p1">“How many humans have to die before you acknowledge what he’s done?”</p><p class="p1">Regis stops dead.His eyes search the Witcher’s face with such intensity that it was with great difficulty that Geralt met his gaze. </p><p class="p1">Cold dread settles in the pit of his stomach.He shouldn’t be putting all this on Regis.His friend was under enough duress right now without Geralt turning on him too.Dettlaff was the one who’d dragged them all into this heap of trouble, and Regis was collateral damage.</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry,” the vampire says at last.“I know that isn’t enough, that it will never be enough, but I am sorry.I am not as blind as you would believe.I’ve done what I could in the city, but, as I’m sure you understand, I cannot engage my brethren without revealing my own monstrous nature.Thus all I had to offer amid this chaos were a set of steady hands and a barber-surgeon’s knowledge.Failing that, I figure the best thing I can do now for the people of this city is help you.So let us do that.”</p><p class="p1">Feeling properly chasten, and sinking only lower, Geralt nods numbly.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">Though time in this pretend world is a luxury afforded them, Geralt kept the pace moving, hastening from one objective to another.The longer he remained in this make-believe world, the more he felt anxious, caged-in, like the walls of this illusion would at any moment flay open like a ripe wound and he’d find himself once more in the carnage of Beauclair.</p><p class="p1">Syanna, however, reveled in dragging her feet.Despite her denial that it had anything to do with dreading the meeting with Dettlaff.</p><p class="p1">She comments on some fairytale or another, drawing him into conversation and even encouraging some humor from him.For all his many reservations about her, he can’t help but enjoy her company, even as sardonic as it’s sometimes inclined.</p><p class="p1">Before long though, she drew him back to her favorite topic, herself. </p><p class="p1">She told him of how after her abandonment, she’d fallen in with a gang of bandits.Their altruism proved truer than those of knights, and before long she’d risen through their ranks, maturing into adulthood at the same time she’d come to lead the whole ragged band. </p><p class="p1">“Should’ve stayed there, maybe,” he says regarding her thoughtfully.</p><p class="p1">“Perhaps,” she shrugs.“Perhaps I should have forgotten everything, started a new life.”</p><p class="p1">She turns away for a moment, staring into the middle distance, her arms crossed in front of her, affecting defiance but instead relaying self-consciousness.</p><p class="p1">“But you know what?There came a point when I thought, ‘you wanted a monster?Then a monster you shall get’.”</p><p class="p1">It was the logic of a child.One acting in provoked retaliation, true, but no less deluded. </p><p class="p1">He could understand Renfri, and many like her, who acted in self-defense— because Stregobor had been a continuous threat to her life with no sign of stopping.Indeed, the mage became so desperate that he called upon a Witcher to see the job done, appealing to the instincts of a monster hunter with a feigned monster. </p><p class="p1">Yet Syanna had carved out a life for herself— far from the memories of her tormentors, among those that treated her with the respect and honor she felt owed— and just admitted that it would never have been enough; that it would never <em>be</em> enough because she wanted others to rue the day they’d crossed her.She wanted to terrorize Toussaint not for any threat to herself, but rather at the behest of her childhood vengeance.</p><p class="p1">“And how, exactly, does forcing a vampire to kill for you show anyone that <em>you</em> are the monster?I mean in a literal sense, given that it's none too hard to see in the figurative,” he says crossing his arms in mirror of her.</p><p class="p1">“Gods, but you are a bleeding-heart for them aren’t you?Never thought I’d see a Witcher so intent on fawning over monsters, but here we stand,” she gestures sharply. </p><p class="p1">“And for your information, it was always about their disgusting hypocrisy, their knight’s codes, and their flimsy little chivalric virtues.It was about how my sister was all too conveniently forgot about me!They all had a hand on the shovel that tried to bury me!”</p><p class="p1">Her rage is palpable, and without a target to focus it on, other than the unaffected cheer of the Fablesphere, it battered uselessly against the Witcher.</p><p class="p1">“I was the royal family’s inconvenient little secret, and it was time to remind everyone of that— time for them to reap what they sowed!” she hisses.</p><p class="p1">“So society treats you like a monster, no matter what you do.You think I don’t get that?”Despite his better judgment, her words do get a rise out of him.“I’ve risked my life more times than I can count for people who would sooner spit in my face about how I’m no better than a beast.I get it, the temptation to strike back, to give in and become exactly what they all insist you are.You were born into this, I was made into this, but neither of us asked for it, neither of us did anything to deserve it.But I’ve been to the place that retribution leads, and let me tell you there is nothing there but pain and regret.”</p><p class="p1">His words had started heated, matching Syanna’s volume with a rolling growl, but by the end, he’s just tired, mentally and emotionally.He reads the fear and rage in Syanna’s eyes and he understands it.He knows it intimately.</p><p class="p1">“Let’s keep moving,” he says, turning away.“There’s one last magic bean to go.”</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">“I say it is for your sake, as well as Dettlaff’s, because to meet the Unseen Elder is to face mortal danger— I’ve said so all along and never in jest.You are a friend, a dear friend.More dear to me than I think you realize.I’d rather you not risk your neck unnecessarily.” </p><p class="p1">As if to emphasize how much Regis liked Geralt’s neck, the vampire’s hand appears at the junction of his shoulder and the nape of his neck, beyond the collar of Geralt’s armor— slide across rain dampen skin.</p><p class="p1">Geralt blinks.Then blinks again.This was such a sharp pivot from what they’d been discussing only moments ago that the Witcher couldn’t help but wonder if he’d blacked out for a moment and missed something.It didn’t help that Geralt was struggling to say something, anything, but that Regis’ fingers decide to curl into the hair at the base of his skull and make themselves at home there.</p><p class="p1">Regis, blessedly, didn’t wait for a response before continuing.“I think it’s natural, I think it’s obvious.Obviously natural.Especially when we’ve an alternative.An entirely reasonable one.”</p><p class="p1">Were they still talking about the same thing?</p><p class="p1">Geralt’s mouth is dry, in spite of the rain that dews on his lips.The thought draws his attention, unbidden, to Regis’ own lips.</p><p class="p1">“Fine…”he manages gruffly, “we’ll free Syanna.”</p><p class="p1">Regis offers him a charming grin, fangs and all, that is utterly heartbreakingly sweet.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Spheres above, help him.</em>
</p><p class="p1">“You won’t make me beg.I knew you wouldn’t.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt could help but wonder how the conversation, his convictions, and his heart, so rapidly slipped right into Regis’ hands.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">“Got the bean, but Longlocks…hm.Seems she got sick of waiting for a knight in shining armor.”The grim absurdity of this place was infecting his humor. </p><p class="p1">To think this was once a haven for two young girls; where they could escape the realities of a world already turning them cold.</p><p class="p1">“Can you blame her?Men these days… dandies and fops, all,” Syanna shrugs flippantly.</p><p class="p1">“That why you cozied up to a vampire?”</p><p class="p1">“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”She says with a smirk.</p><p class="p1">…<em>what?</em></p><p class="p1">“What?” he asks with narrowed eyes.</p><p class="p1">“The little uppity one in the grey gambeson that reeks of an apothecary’s shop?”</p><p class="p1">“Regis,” he says slowly, “…what about him?”</p><p class="p1">“Oh please.You can’t be so dense as to miss the way he swoons for you.”</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The hell?</em>
</p><p class="p1">“Even I noticed it in the short time we were all together,” she continues, unabated. “And I had an angry ex to contend with.He takes cues from you, he advocates for your position on matters, he only had eyes for you—”</p><p class="p1">“Who the hell— of course he had his eyes on me, he was <em>talking</em> to me.My position was the logical one, and I’ve heard him out just as often as he does me.”</p><p class="p1">She offers him a deadpan look and a raised eyebrow, as if that made her point.</p><p class="p1">“Besides,” he continues mulishly, “we’re discussing you and <em>your</em> vampire problem if you’d bother to pay attention.” </p><p class="p1">Is he getting a little too excited?Yes, but damn if this hadn’t come out of the blue and hit at something a little too close for comfort.</p><p class="p1">Syanna snorts inelegantly.“Trust me, I’ve been around a lovesick vampire long enough to know the signs.Share blood yet?”</p><p class="p1">“Wha…” he trails off, his brain trying desperately to play catchup.What was she playing at?</p><p class="p1">“Oh <em>dear</em>,” she says with a tone that rankles him.“But you're right, it's all rather beside the point.”</p><p class="p1">Before he can hope to draw any conclusion from this charade, Syanna’s expression sobers.</p><p class="p1">“As for Dettlaff… he was a tool.And only a tool.”She hesitates, as if unsure of her own words. </p><p class="p1">Geralt wondered if some part of Syanna, the part that wasn’t hellbent on revenge and would have been happy to stay in Nazair, regretted how things ended with the vampire.</p><p class="p1">Surely, for someone who hated the fact that she’d been branded a misfit and a monster from birth, she would have a bit more empathy for Dettlaff?</p><p class="p1">“Too bad he didn’t know that,” he offers.</p><p class="p1">“I trust no one.Learned that long ago.Now it’s his turn.”</p><p class="p1">Ah, there was empathy now, taking a dive out Longlocks’ window.</p><p class="p1">“To use him - was that your plan from the start?”</p><p class="p1">No, evidently it wasn’t. </p><p class="p1">She spins him the tale of how the two had met in Metinna, how Dettlaff had intrigued her, and, following a hunch, she’d forced him to reveal himself.He lashed out in a warning, to scare her only and failed rather spectacularly.The Witcher noted how Syanna was careful to mention that Dettlaff was the one to become infatuated, whereas she was merely amused with the idea of bonding with a vampire— enjoyed it, sure, but in the way that one enjoys a good novel or play— for the fantasy of the thing, not the reality. </p><p class="p1">Having met a number of like-minded individuals would similarly fetishize him— for being strange and dangerous and thrilling, for being a Witcher, something he could not help— to hear about Syanna’s callous disregard for the budding mate-bond between her and Dettlaff left a bitter taste in his mouth. </p><p class="p1">To her, Dettlaff was a mildly fascinating toy and not much more.</p><p class="p1">He didn’t know the intricacies of how vampire bonds worked, but he’d always been under the impression that some mutuality had to be present.But then, as Regis rightly observed, humans were capricious creatures, even in their promises to one another.</p><p class="p1">“I truly enjoyed it at first.But only at first.He did not love like a man, but like an animal.Madly, deeply, unconditionally.Wildly.To return such a feeling… anyone would be hard-pressed… let alone someone as twisted as I am.”</p><p class="p1">“For someone so despised and rejected by the world, one would think that someone offering you unconditional love would be something to cherish,” Geralt says with a scoff of derision.</p><p class="p1">“Is that so?”She regards him with hands on her hips and a less than impressed look.“So you're telling me you’ve never broken any hearts because you couldn’t stand their ‘unconditional’ love?”</p><p class="p1">He fell silent. </p><p class="p1">Unbidden thoughts of Triss and Yennefer sprung to mind, along with the guilt. </p><p class="p1">Back before he’d regained his memories, the only thing he’d know for certain was that Triss was a familiar, inviting presence in a world of uncertainty.To say that he’d mistakenly embraced that familiarity as affection would be a damning understatement.Yes, Triss also manipulated him and took advantage of his amnesia, but the feelings shared between them had been genuine, if only for a time, and then he’d broken her heart to pursue Yennefer anew.</p><p class="p1">As with many things with Yennefer, their relationship was never simple.They fought, bickered endlessly, gave into petty impulses, and broke up nearly as often as they passionately feel for each other. </p><p class="p1">Geralt, propelled by the magic of the djinn wish and with no real experience with long-term relationships to speak of, had mistaken their dysfunctionality for true love.But he’d been deluding himself.Even before the wish was reversed, he could see the cracks forming— widened further by the situation with the Wild Hunt and his time with Triss.He now accepted that while he would always love her in many ways— as the mother of Ciri and as a dear friend with whom he’d shared many hardships, and as someone he’d give his life for in a heartbeat— he could not love her in the way she desired most.</p><p class="p1">There had been others too.He’d doubtless broken quite a few hearts along the path with his moods prone to passion as a mask for self-doubt.Witcher’s were expendable in many ways to many people, and so he’d internalized that notion and, for a time, reflected it back at others cruelly.</p><p class="p1">And now he was doing the same to Regis.His dear friend who’d admitted that vampires had a hard time trust humans for the very fickleness that Geralt displayed. </p><p class="p1">No, he was no one to judge Syanna.Not in this.</p><p class="p1">“So, there came a day you just up and disappeared,” he says at length.</p><p class="p1">“Yes,” she admits with a frown, “there was no other way.<em>Let’s just be friends,</em> or <em>I don’t deserve you</em> - he’d never have understood that sort of thing.”</p><p class="p1">Anger rises, unbidden inside of him. </p><p class="p1">“But he did, didn’t he?” His voice is bitter cold.“Dettlaff respected your wishes and left you alone.Regis said that it was not for lack of trying, he searched for you and came up empty, but I don’t think Regis gave Dettlaff enough credit.He’s a higher vampire, he’d have all the time in the world to look for you if he’d truly wanted.Instead, he chose Regis.”</p><p class="p1">He beings to pace, all the time keeping his eyes on Syanna, meeting her gaze.For once, the young woman didn’t have an immediate cutting answer.</p><p class="p1">“He found him, all but dead, and put aside his broken heart, his broken bond, to nurse Regis back from the edge.And from what I heard— from what I’ve felt and seen— Regis is one of the best things to happen to Dettlaff.Just as Dettlaff saved him, Regis acted in kind, and healed to wounds <em>you</em> left behind.” </p><p class="p1">And here he stops, facing her with clenched fists and clenched teeth.He’d been at Regis’ side as he spoke of Dettlaff and exhibited the lengths he would go to for their blood-bond.Hell, he’d been <em>inside</em> Dettlaff’s head with the help of the Resonance.He knew Dettlaff’s wrath, his guilt, his extreme capacity to <em>love</em> and to <em>hate</em>.</p><p class="p1">“And they would have continued to heal,” Geralt continues.“Both of them, away from the influence of you and I… if not for your childish desire for revenge.You claim that Dettlaff would not have left you alone, but you are the one who exhumed the corpse of his devotion for you and hung it over his head, as one would bait a mad dog.You made him sick by your disease— now you will suffer the wraith of his symptoms.”</p><p class="p1">There is a beat of silence, as he regains his composure.The headache is back behind his eyes again, stoked by his raw emotions.</p><p class="p1">But for all that she had been expelled from nobility as a child, Syanna retains the haughty outrage they often lord over others.</p><p class="p1">“I used him, yes, but there were no other options, not that I would expect <em>you</em> to understand.”</p><p class="p1">They stand at an impasse, neither willing to give and both fuming in the silence.</p><p class="p1">After a too-long moment,Syanna turns away from him and begins to stride off toward the open field.</p><p class="p1">“Let me handle Dettlaff.I know what he’s <em>really</em> like.For now, it’s time to get the fuck out of this forsaken Fablesphere.”</p><p class="p1">For all the fabricated sun that beats down on him, he is left feeling cold.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">The rain persists stronger than ever.</p><p class="p1">Curiously, he can’t seem to remember what it was he’d been about to say, if anything, given that his heart felt like it was pounding uncomfortably quick for his inhumanly slow circulation. </p><p class="p1">Regis could doubtless feel it, given the steady touch the vampire bestowed on his pulse-point.</p><p class="p1">Geralt watched in fascination as the other’s nostrils flared in deep intakes of breath and the eyes before him drink the shadows and drown in dilated pupils.</p><p class="p1">A gentle pressure at his nape guiding his head forward.Regis is leaning forward to meet him, but unlike the handful of other times they’ve done this, their mouths tilt closer.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">All at once, there are lips on his, at first soft, but quickly turn searing.While his mind plays catch-up, his body responds in kind, receiving and meeting the intensity of the kiss just as fervently.</p><p class="p1">But something is off.</p><p class="p1">The lips beneath his are quite a bit fuller than he’d expected, and the teeth his exploration finds are dull, flat, <em>human—</em></p><p class="p1">Just like that, the heat steadily building in him is doused in ice water. </p><p class="p1">He breaks off abruptly and takes a further step back as Syanna moves to follow him, mistaking his retreat for coy playfulness. </p><p class="p1">It should be fine, he is quick to reason.He clearly means nothing to her and she to him— it's a moment of respite and harmless distraction. </p><p class="p1">Why should he have doubts?</p><p class="p1"><em>A distraction,</em> his mind whispers traitorously.<em>A fickle little distraction.</em></p><p class="p1">He liked her, he could admit easily enough.Her fiery demeanor evoked strong memories of his first meeting with Yennefer back in Rinde, when the attraction had been undeniable even before the wish sent them hurtling toward one another.For all that Syanna aggravated him and vice versa, there was an undeniable allure between them.</p><p class="p1">But it felt wrong.The thought of pursuing this further twisted in his gut unpleasantly.</p><p class="p1">That is, until he’d put more distance between them and effectively ended the encounter before it could truly begin.</p><p class="p1">“Sorry,” he says lamely at her clear confusion, “another time, another place, maybe.No offense…”</p><p class="p1">She looks quite a bit put off, but nonetheless accepts his awkward words with a fair amount of grace.“None taken.You spoke clearly, you spoke honestly.It’s fine.”</p><p class="p1">And it is.He’s relieved. </p><p class="p1">Or at least he is until she looks at him askance for a measure before giving him a smirk.</p><p class="p1">“Besides, I wouldn’t want to anger your vampire anyway.”</p><p class="p1">He opens his mouth, then slowly shut it. </p><p class="p1">He doesn’t know what to say to that. Anything he might respond with, protest or denial, would come across as a little <em>too</em> defensive.Hell, even his silence was damning enough if Syanna’s smirk broadening into a grin was anything to go by.</p><p class="p1">“We should find the exit,” he mumbles instead.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">It almost seems wrong that the sky is once more clear of storm clouds as the Witcher and the princess stumble out of the Land of a Thousand Fables.</p><p class="p1">But Regis is there, all the same.</p><p class="p1">Geralt recalls the brisk touch of foreheads they’d shared at the docks, Regis’ way of cementing their friendship, and the agreement they’d reached, no doubt, before departing for the palace proper.</p><p class="p1">Though the Witcher’s heart sank to the soles of his aching feet when the vampire didn’t press forward, further, for a kiss, for a sign, for anything that might offer Geralt more of what he so desperately wished for.</p><p class="p1">Damn him, when had a become such a terribly sentimental man that a simple touch could send him hurdling into brooding fits? </p><p class="p1">Regis would probably laugh and say that he’d been this way since the moment they’d met.</p><p class="p1">After some waspish words shared between snarky vampire and the exasperated ex princess— and a scolding therein from the tired Witcher for both to quit their bickering— they began the long trek to Tesham Mutna.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p><p class="p1">Somewhere on the gentle breeze, the last refrain of a bruxa’s song stirs the night air.</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>Eat you up whole.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Eat you whole.</em>
</p><p class="p1"> </p><p class="p1">
  <em>…</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Geralt can sometimes be a bit of an unreliable narrator, but we all knew that.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter starts with a Regis POV (the italicized section) from between the first and second chapters.  After that, It's back to Geralt's POV for the rest of the chapter in the present timeline.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <em>What have I done?</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>With rapidly dawning horror, Regis withdraws his fangs from the slumped form held tight in his grasp.The removal of his mouth’s suction allows the blood that’d filled his palate to pour forth in a dribbling mess upon the Witcher.The contrasting red spilled on pallid cadaverous skin nauseates the vampire, despite the gnawing urge to dive back in for another taste.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Geralt was dead weight in his arms. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The pulse Regis rushes to reassure himself is still present palpitates with a tempo that is distressingly fast.Further, the huffed breaths that passed between blue-tinged lips are laborious.The vampire presses his ear against the Witcher’s diaphragm; his meticulous hearing and his vast knowledge of anatomical proceedings allowing him to grasp at some idea of how dire a situation he’s put his friend in.No doubt the venom secreted in his bite and the sheer volume of blood loss were wreaking havoc on an already overtaxed body.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>No.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>No this can’t happen. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>If his own loss of control led to— if Geralt died by his hands— by his weakness—</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Regis clumsily wills his claws back into the shaky set of his hands as he grasps through his satchel of supplies— desperate for any rag or scrap of cloth clean enough to put pressure on the bite that sluggishly bleeds in fat rivulets from puncture wounds.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Everything is soaked in blood.It feels like some perverse dream, but a glance at Geralt’s slack form, the spasmodic tic of the Witcher’s facial features in pain, and the rasp of respiration, were that of a nightmare.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Somehow, through utter desperation and bitting back screams of frustration, Regis has Geralt wrapped in make-shift bandages and secure in his arms.While the Witcher is by no mean diminutive in stature— broader at the shoulders and with more compacted muscle than the vampire— the life held fast in the span of his arms feels wretchedly fragile. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The boneless loll of Geralt’s head against the crook of Regis’ shoulder all but wrenches a wordless keen from his bloodstained lips.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>He flies up the walls and tears out of Tesham Mutna’s torturous depths with single-minded turbulence.He had no tolerance for his own bubbling guilt; not when indulging in it might cost Geralt valuable time.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Upon rushing into the open air, he briefly considers transforming into his bat form to convey the Witcher that much more expeditiously to Mère-Lachaiselongue, but for the very real danger that he might cause further harm in his panic should his claws grasp too tight.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Damn these claws that were so perfectly made to rend.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>He chooses instead to carry his precious cargo as is, bundled close to his chest, where he can better feel the faint signs of life.He moves swiftly through the woods and landscape, his form sometimes dematerializing in fits and bursts into mist in his haste, but never so completely as to fumble his charge.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Headstones pass by underfoot and through the gloom of fireflies, his forlorn journey has reached its end.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The Witcher’s heart still beats and his breathing has eased from laborious to that of the deep healing sleep characteristic of those who pull through.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Only once all is done— the various wounds are cleaned, healing salves applied liberally, wrapped carefully, and a restorative is set to brew— Regis allows himself the luxury of remorse.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>He couldn’t remember exactly how he’d come to have his fangs buried in the flesh of his dear friend— only that he’d been wild with the smell of it, and the taste was comforting and sweet— and that disturbed him greatly.Had he known how great a threat he posed to Geralt, he might have reconsidered involving the Witcher. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Though, in undressing his charge as clinically as possible, he hadn’t failed to follow the distinct scent of vampiric blood emanating from a corked vial carefully secured in the Witcher’s pocket.All would have been for not without Geralt’s quick action in the face of Regis’ grave monstrosity. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>All for Dettlaff.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Geralt and Dettlaff.His two most cherished… his dearests. </em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>The draw to both was undeniable.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>To him, they were home.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>He holds a silent vigil over the Witcher’s sleeping form and considers with morbid fascination the fact that Geralt’s blood now joins and runs with Dettlaff’s blood, together through Regis’ gradually regenerating veins. </em>
</p><hr/><p class="p1">The air of Tesham Mutna is just as oppressively heavy as it was the last time Geralt was here. </p><p class="p1">Though the door to the torture chamber is sealed shut, the Witcher imagines he can almost hear the echoes from below— the creak of cage door hinges, the hollow vacuum of dense air through tunneled earth— the ruin whispers in its sleep.</p><p class="p1">His eyes stray to a dark spot on the flagstones that he’s pretty sure is blood but for the fact that there are no other spots, smears, or some other such disturbance around it.Just one spot, roughly the size and shape of an oren.Hardly worth notice except for its singularity and its stark contrast with the weathered gray stone it lies upon.</p><p class="p1">A headache is forming behind his eyes and he gives in to the impulse to kneed at his aching brow with the heel of his palms.He hasn’t slept— <em>true</em> sleep and not just the meditation that barely suppresses his fitful mind through the night— since Dun Tynne.The last twenty-four hours especially felt like an eternity.</p><p class="p1">He turns and his movement draws Regis’ focus from where before it had been lingering off in the middle distance of the valley’s landscape.His friend offers him the smallest upturn of the corner of his mouth, but little else.He doesn’t have to look to track Syanna’s listless pacing about the courtyard.For the last hour, her shuffling feet had rather effectively swept the stones of a surface layer of sediment in their relentless repetition.</p><p class="p1">The tension was unbearable.</p><p class="p1">It had become undeniable that none of them knew what to expect, especially given the course of the night’s events.Regis had fallen into a sullen silence shortly after their arrival.Geralt hadn’t missed how the other seemed adrift in thought, and if the pained pinch of his brow and steadily fluctuating frowns were anything to judge by, they were thoughts spiraling into hopelessness.</p><p class="p1">To her credit, Syanna finally admitted that she was nervous about the coming confrontation.All of her certainty that come what may she would be able to handle Dettlaff had fled as soon as the reality of the situation became clear.</p><p class="p1">“Yet I owe him this meeting.And that is that” she concluded with conviction.</p><p class="p1">Given that her presence here was their only recourse for ending the destruction in the city, Geralt had to admire her determination to set things at least somewhat right, despite her apparent fear.Hell, it could be argued that, despite how her actions may have contributed to the carnage in Beauclair, Syanna was doing far more than her sister to secure the vampiric threat. </p><p class="p1">Geralt hoped for her sake that those efforts were enough to see them all to a peaceful resolution.</p><p class="p1">At least, that’s what the last shred of optimism in him, bolstered by Regis’ insistence that this was the correct course of action and Syanna’s resolve in the face of the odds, would have him believe.</p><p class="p1">However, reality rarely sides in his favor.</p><p class="p1">Though they had been waiting anxiously for some time, Dettlaff’s arrival catches them all off guard.The red mist that pools through the ruin’s archway and across the flagstones encircles Syanna quickly in its embrace.A voice that is more rasp and growl than words emanates from every direction—</p><p class="p1">
  <em>“Syanna… Syanna… I’ve a question I must ask you.”</em>
</p><p class="p1">—before the mist condenses into the form of Dettlaff who stalks forth with intent.</p><p class="p1">“Did you truly feign it all?Was that which bound us a ruse?”</p><p class="p1">From his vantage point, some thirty paces back, Geralt can’t see Syanna’s face, but the way her body holds tense as a bowstring, caught off-guard as Dettlaff towers over her, this can’t be how she’d hoped to begin this discussion.</p><p class="p1">For the threat dripping from his words, the higher vampire’s face is deceptively blank, or rather, defaulting to what Geralt had come to understand was his typical dour and guarded visage.</p><p class="p1">Beside him, Regis is deathly still, as if any disturbance might tip the careful balance one way or another.For himself, Geralt has no reservations about resting his hand upon the hilt of his sword, though he makes no move to draw it, yet.</p><p class="p1">“Dettlaff… It’s not that simple.I—”</p><p class="p1">As she speaks she raises her hand to frame Dettlaff’s face, in a move that is doubtless familiar to the both of them— but her wrist is caught before the gesture can be completed.This startles a gasp from the former princess, which in turn prompts the Witcher to draw his sword.</p><p class="p1">“Oh no.It’s very simple,” Dettlaff exhales sharply, his words growing colder as it becomes clear what Syanna’s avoidance of an answer means; his sharp emphasis on the words compounded by his anger.“You either deceived me… or not.”</p><p class="p1">Syanna is now visibly panicking as she attempted to shake off the clawed hand that holds her’s fast as a manacle.</p><p class="p1">Regis bolts forward and Geralt follows.Though they only make it a dozen paces before it is already evidently too late.</p><p class="p1">“In forgiving you, I grieve, for now we must part.”Dettlaff’s words reverberate off the stone with their finality.</p><p class="p1">The same clawed hand that Geralt once saw thrust through Regis on its path to rip out the Witcher’s heart now descended on Syanna and pin her like an insect.</p><p class="p1">“A shame,” the vampire sighed softly before directing the slumping form in his grasp slowly to the ground.</p><p class="p1">Geralt feels nausea and rage clawing in equal measure at his throat as Dettlaff delicately smoothes the corpse’s eyelids closed, removing the shocked horror and leaving not even a drop of blood behind to smear the wan visage.</p><p class="p1">He’d failed her. </p><p class="p1">He’d brought her here, promised her protection, and had forsaken her when she needed the Witcher most.Some would have said she deserved this, that it was the consequences of her actions… but throughout the night Geralt couldn’t help but see her conduct as that of a scorned youth— deprived and wrought from equal parts contempt and fear.A man-made monster, like himself.</p><p class="p1">“What did you do?”Regis’ last vestiges of calm have crumbled away and his words waver in disbelief.</p><p class="p1">“I did what I had to do.What she deserved,” Dettlaff replies as he distantly regards the hand that had ripped Syanna’s life away.“Beauclair will know peace once more.The vampires will have left the city by dawn,” he says as he draws his eye up to meet the Witcher’s. </p><p class="p1">They regard each other coldly.If the vampire he stands across from hopes to draw a verbal response for this declaration, Geralt disappoints.The rise and fall of his breath rocks his whole body with tiny movements, any of which could send him tipping forward, sword drawn and damn the consequences.</p><p class="p1">This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff was emotionally unstable, yes.Dangerous, undoubtedly.But he and Syanna were to <em>talk</em>.There was to be no further bloodshed.He’d done what he could to assure that!Where had he gone wrong?</p><p class="p1">“I shall leave as well,” Dettlaff continues into the silence, “To go far away.Far from men.”</p><p class="p1">And then he says something that draws the Witcher up short.</p><p class="p1">“You can try to stand in my way.Then I shall kill you both,” this statement startles a sharp breath from Regis who rocks slightly on his feet as if hit with a physical blow.“Though that is not at all my will,” Dettlaff says with a look of pain as he regards the two before him, “…The decision is yours.”</p><p class="p1">The decision was his?But, <em>why?</em></p><p class="p1">What self-respecting being, man or monster, would voluntarily submit to the judgment of a Witcher?Yes, Geralt had been on the receiving end of more than a few pleads for mercy, but those had come from the last-ditch efforts of quarry pursued to the end of the line and rendered helpless by his blade.</p><p class="p1">But why would a higher vampire— a being who could move in the blink of an eye, who could make Geralt a smear, decorating the stone facade of Tesham Mutna before he could begin to swing his sword, a being that could render him helpless with one bite— stop and defer to him? </p><p class="p1">Why did Regis humor this?Dettlaff posed the decision to both of them, true, but Regis said he would honor any ultimate action Geralt took.And, for all intents and purposes, it appeared that his friend was waiting for Geralt to make the final call just as Dettlaff was.But, why?It’s not as if there was any consequence the Witcher could level over the other should Regis decide to do as he pleased.If either vampire wanted, they could just turn to mist right now and escape together, leaving him behind, and there would be nothing he could do about it. </p><p class="p1">So, why did Dettlaff stop and patiently await his response with a look more solemn than any he’d offered Syanna?</p><p class="p1">No apparent answer is forthcoming.</p><p class="p1">The sky is growing lighter and dawn isn’t more than an hour or so off.Soon, the terror of this night will be over.One way or another, the bloodshed would cease, and that had been his objective, even if it was bought with the bitter blood of so much collateral damage.He’d come to this place seeking to compromise with Dettlaff, unwilling to seek the vampire’s destruction even before Syanna’s death, when the other still had a city’s worth of blood to answer for.Did this last act of revenge tip the scales so?</p><p class="p1">All would look upon the decisions Geralt made here tonight and— if they were feeling charitable— see him as an ill-fated harbinger, too late and too little to advert destruction.At worst, given his association with the vampire involved and his inability to stop him, he was complicit with the slaughter, and thus, was once more a butcher.</p><p class="p1">The Butcher of Blaviken and the Beast of Beauclair. </p><p class="p1">Both parties had earned their monikers with a fair amount of layered nuance and guilt, but both were earned all the same. </p><p class="p1">Who was he to judge Dettlaff? </p><p class="p1">Physically, he couldn’t. </p><p class="p1">A higher vampire can only be judged and punished by their peers, and thus the burden would fall to Regis to meeter out justice.And he could no more ask Regis to pass judgment on Dettlaff than Regis could ask him to do the same to his fellow Wolf Witchers. </p><p class="p1">Morally he <em>could</em> judge Dettlaff, though Geralt’s morals had long ago grayed with cynicism and layered hypocrisy.For the hordes of vampires ravaging the city of Beauclair— a bloodletting that would no doubt shake the core of Toussaint for decades if not centuries to come— Dettlaff was guilty.But though the execution was his alone, the fault was not so total that Geralt was blind to the involvement of others. </p><p class="p1">Anna Henrietta had been warned of the danger ahead of time, but instead of taking Geralt seriously, she allowed the worst-case scenario to unfold because she would not compromise her pride to protect her people.Even Syanna, for all her faults, had at least had the decency to recognize her place in spurring Dettlaff’s ultimatum.</p><p class="p1">Further, could Geralt judge Dettlaff for killing Syanna?On a personal level, he wasn’t sure that he could, or rather, that he was the best candidate for such.He’d ended the lives of others for lesser reasons.Though he hated Dettlaff for killing Syanna— for perpetuating the cycle of bloodshed and forcing Geralt to make a choice— Syanna had also done terrible harm to the higher vampire. </p><p class="p1">Dettlaff had been manipulated into becoming a murderous tool to exact Syanna’s revenge, going so far as to kill a knight that he’d considered a dear friend.Geralt had been there.The Resonance brew all but placed him right in Dettlaff’s shoes as he tore apart de la Croix and wallowed in anguish afterward.Those were not the thoughts of a remorseless killer.He’d been driven to a kind of madness, yes, but one born of the urgency to see his love safe and whole, only for said love to have been revealed as his tormentor the whole time. </p><p class="p1">Geralt himself had committed countless acts of violence in the name of seeing his loved-ones protected and vindicated.Hell, his pursuit of Ciri, both times, left a body count that Geralt no longer paid any mind. </p><p class="p1">Gods, he was tired. </p><p class="p1">Tired of the bloodshed.Tired of the second-guessing and the doubt.Tired of watching Regis’ face fall with each new disappointment.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Regis.</em>
</p><p class="p1">If Geralt had met Regis those many years ago when the other had been in the throes of his addiction, would Geralt have judged the vampire a menace to society, fit only to be put down like a rabid dog?</p><p class="p1">Yes.Though the answer pains him, even in its hypothetical nature.If Regis had been sentenced to death, <em>true death</em>, for all the blood he’d imbibed, the world would have been deprived of a truly remarkable being, and Geralt would be worse for never having known him.</p><p class="p1">Perhaps then, this event could be Dettlaff’s epiphany; his ‘fifty-years-in-the-ground’ so to speak.With time and Regis’ guidance— a continuation of the healing that the two had slowly developed in the absence of Syanna’s influence— Dettlaff could find his place in the world again.Perhaps, in years to come, he would tentatively seek out human friendships again, like those of de la Croix and the bootblack.</p><p class="p1">Maybe Geralt had been so busy looking for evidence as to whether or not Dettlaff was evil, he’d forgotten that humans— <em>and Witchers</em>— acted much the same.</p><p class="p1">What did it matter anyway?Syanna was dead, and no amount of further death would change that fact.Would he really force two bonded vampires to fight to the death over— what,her honor?With all the blood on her hands, Syanna’d clearly demonstrated what she thought of Toussaint’s ideals of honor.Her last intent had been to end the massacre in the city, and in a twisted sense, she’d helped achieve that.</p><p class="p1">For a long while, all he was aware of was the sound of his breath getting faster and faster and the spiral of his thoughts, blending together until they were indistinguishable by overwhelming degrees.Neither vampire had made a move; both seemed to recognize the turmoil conjured within him and respected his need to consider things carefully. </p><p class="p1">Dettlaff never flinched, never looked away.He stands before Geralt like a condemned man awaiting sentencing.</p><p class="p1">He can’t do this.It was never really a choice.For him to ask Regis to kill his bond mate and become an anathema would be a greater betrayal of Regis’ trust than anything Dettlaff had yet done.</p><p class="p1">He sheaths his sword.</p><p class="p1">“You can go.But if ever we meet again…”</p><p class="p1">“I shall keep my distance, believe me.”The tension melts from Dettlaff and he inclines his head in agreement.“Geralt, Regis… <em>farewell</em>…”</p><p class="p1">The last word is whispered in mist as the higher vampire disintegrates into the steadily lengthening shadows of dawn.Out of the corner of his eye, Geralt catches Regis making an aborted gesture to reach out to the retreating form before his hand returns to the hook of his satchel strap. </p><p class="p1"><em>The poor leather will need replacing soon</em>, Geralt thinks idly, <em>given how much the vampire worries that strap.</em></p><p class="p1">“What have we done?”Regis all but whispers into the stillness of Dettlaff’s wake.</p><p class="p1">Geralt almost makes a snide comment about how they’d let a killer go, but the devastation in Regis’ face sours the words in his mouth.</p><p class="p1">His nausea only worsens at what they have to address next.</p><p class="p1">“We— <em>I</em> have to let Anna Henrietta know,” Geralt says, attention drawn to the crumpled form at the bottom of the steps.</p><p class="p1">Regis’ eyes widen to an almost comical degree as he whips to face the Witcher.Two solid hands grasp each of Geralt’s arms and root him firmly in place.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, you will face—”</p><p class="p1">“I know.”He can’t look Regis in the eyes.“All the same, I have to inform the duchess.”Returning Syanna to Anna was the very least he could do for the sisters, given he’d failed then in all other respects.</p><p class="p1">“I will go with you.Perhaps, explain things—”</p><p class="p1">“No, Regis.You can’t be involved, not this time.”</p><p class="p1">“But—”</p><p class="p1">“You must go, Regis,” he sighs, letting the full weight of his exhausting rise to the surface.He doesn’t have the strength to suppress it now.“Anna Henrietta knows that you are a friend of Dettlaff and Damien will attest to your involvement in Syanna’s escape.It won’t take much for you to be labeled a coconspirator in her death.”</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, what can Damien, the Duchess, or any mortal in this land do to me?” The vampire says, leaning into the Witcher to try and meet eyes.“You will lose your <em>life</em>.What do I stand to lose other than my <em>convenience?</em>”</p><p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t offer a retort to this but raises his eyes.Regis must see something meaningful there as he hesitates, seemingly coming to a decision.</p><p class="p1">“Say the word and we leave right now.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt can’t help the way his mouth drops open in surprise.This isn’t where he thought this was going…</p><p class="p1">“Anywhere you want,” Regis continues in a rush, cutting through the noises of objection that claw up the Witcher’s throat.“— no, listen to me, Geralt.You are magnificent and oh so noble but sometimes I can’t tell if your penchant for martyrdom stems from some misguided credulity or a deep-seated suicidal impulse.”</p><p class="p1">That rich coming from one who was just as guilty of said acts of martyrdom.Regis hadn’t seen the immediate toll of Stygga.But the impulse to object is once more silenced by Regis offering his captured arms a firm squeeze. </p><p class="p1">“I know you often feel the need to take the burden of guilt on your shoulders, but I can assure you that you are a much greater asset to the world and much more dear to me alive and whole rather than hanging from the ducal gallows,” Regis says with candor.“Come with me.We can go to my old haunts in Dillingen, or if that’s not far enough away we can travel up to your Witcher’s keep.Not so glamorous as this southern weather I’ll grant you, but secure and private.Kovir, Poviss, The Blue Mountains, Zerrikania, Ofier, anywhere you want my dear.And should you grow restless, as I know you are prone to, we can travel the rest of the continent for however long we wish, side by side.But just this once, you must let things go.”</p><p class="p1">Gods, how he wants that.How it would be so easy to be whisked away with Regis and never look back.Damn him, he wants it with a pang that he cannot shake.But it is a fantasy.He can’t stand here with his heartbreaking and look Regis in the eyes and entertain this delusion.He’s not strong enough.</p><p class="p1">“I know that sometimes you feel alienated,” Geralt says slowly, carefully, his mouth suddenly unbearably dry, “from both humanity and your own kind.I wouldn’t let you destroy the last ties you have to both for me.”</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, <em>please.</em>” </p><p class="p1">“Can’t run from this Regis.You of all people taught me how futile it is to run from problems.”</p><p class="p1">“Who outside of Toussaint would ever give a damn?My dear, there are some battles even <em>you</em> cannot and should not fight!”</p><p class="p1">“Stop being stubborn and think logically,” Geralt finds his voice raising to match Regis’ elevated distress.Damn it, they’re going about this all wrong.“We are both culpable in this but you have so much more to lose.”</p><p class="p1">“How can you say that?” Regis snaps through his fangs, “your life is on the line!”</p><p class="p1">“And yours isn’t?Or Dettlaff’s for that matter?Do you think because neither of you died tonight that you are safe?If damage control isn’t done, you and Dettlaff will face a similar fate.And once the vampires decide what fate that is, it’s over.No running to Kovir or The Blue Mountains can stop their judgment.”</p><p class="p1">This brings about a pause.Regis considers his words with naked trepidation.“They wouldn’t,” he says at last, but he no longer seems so sure.</p><p class="p1">“They would,” Geralt says pensively,“If guilt by association is a criminal offense, in their eyes your hands are just as bloodstained as Dettlaff’s, for all of tonight’s events.Orianna will accuse you of consorting with a Witcher and with humans… she already suggested as much when I confronted her about holding audience with the unseen elder.Should the humans of the south begin to hunt vampires in earnest— with Witchers and mages, and however many other means— should the solitude of the higher vampires of this land be disturbed as they once were with Khagmar— it will be you and Dettlaff that are to blame.”</p><p class="p1">He can see all of this sinking in.Regis shakes his head in small denial, but the movements slow to a stop.He stares somewhere over the Witcher’s shoulder.</p><p class="p1">“You once told me about Khagmar and the history of Tesham Mutna,” Geralt continues carefully, “that in the eyes of his fellows, Khagmar’s ultimate crime was that he brought too much attention to the existence of vampires.How does tonight measure up to Khagmar infamy?”Then another, colder thought occurs to him.“If Khagmar was never killed outright, whatever happened to him?”</p><p class="p1">Regis starts, his gaze flickering to Geralt briefly before looking away again, brow creased with stress.</p><p class="p1">“I know not with any certainty,” Regis relays at length, “but it is rumored that shortly after his release he understood that if he were to transgress again, his punishment would begin anew, so… in a fit of madness or misery… he sought his own death, by any means.I do not know if he ever succeeded, but he’s never been heard from since.”</p><p class="p1">“I won’t let it come to that,” Geralt says with soft assurance.“Yes, vampires were what attacked the city tonight, it’s impossible to deny that, but there only needs to be one very convenient scapegoat.One target for all the people’s derision.Let the ire fall on The Witcher.They’ll say that it was he who failed to protect them.”He sighs and slumps a little in Regis’ grip, “And they’d be right, I failed them.I failed Syanna, I failed the duchess, and I’ve failed the people.Some fucking Witcher I am.”</p><p class="p1">Regis holds him closer, gathering Geralt up and embracing him fully.The squeeze of the vampire’s arms as they clutch him close would be alarming if it didn’t feel as if he wasn’t about to fall apart without the pressure.</p><p class="p1">“How can we stand here and act as if losing you wouldn’t mean utter devastation to me?”Regis’ words are muffled as they are spoken into his shoulder, as if struggling to contain them.“I can’t do it again, Geralt.It would destroy me.I can’t be all alone again.The thought of losing you now would be too much to bear.”</p><p class="p1">“You have Dettlaff now,” Geralt says through a constricting airway.Gods, if he could just compose himself for a second instead of feeling his heart sink to the very bottom of his feet.“He needs you, Regis.You’re not alone, not anymore.”</p><p class="p1">Regis shudders in his arms and his wordless moan rips through Geralt’s core.They hold each other tightly, in denial of the dawning sun and the cruel passage of time and the inevitable.</p><p class="p1">It wasn’t fair.They were supposed to have time; time after this whole crazy mess was concluded.Once everything between the duchy and the vampires was finished, they were to have time to talk.About what this <em>thing</em> between them was.About life moving forward and how Geralt couldn’t picture a future that was without Regis.</p><p class="p1">He holds Regis in his arms and thinks about his first meeting with the tight-lipped barber-surgeon and the near-instant ease with which he and his companions felt welcome in Regis’ presence.He thinks about how naturally Regis had fit into their little hansa, even after the brief strife of Geralt’s ingrained objections to vampires.He remembers the lazy months in a Toussaint of yesteryear.He remembers the numb anguish that wracked him as he watched Regis die, and the utter disbelief and bittersweet joy of seeing his friend again, even if it was to see him speared on the claws of another vampire for a heart-stopping moment.He thinks about every time Regis had purposely reached for him, his gentle touch and the raw emotion that such gestures elicited in Geralt. </p><p class="p1">Was it so unreasonable that he found himself unwilling to move on?That he loved Regis?Was that not enough?</p><p class="p1">And all at once, he is trapped between instinctively knowing that something has irrevocably changed.And that something else, something so fragile and so tentative, has come to an end.</p><p class="p3">His jaw is turned with nimble fingers and the gentle visage that greets him is both heartbreaking and beautiful.</p><p class="p3">“I’m so very afraid that I've fallen in love with you, my dear,” Regis murmurs, resting their foreheads together and letting shining eyes fall closed.</p><p class="p3">Geralt tastes Regis’ tears on his lips.</p><p class="p3">The sun is rising and they cling to one another, desperate and resigned.</p><p class="p1">“This isn’t how this ends,” Regis says at last.It’s not a goodbye so much as the conviction of a promise.“I’ll make sure of it.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t doubt him. </p><p class="p1">Doesn’t want to…</p><p class="p1">But then, Witcher’s weren’t made for happy endings.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Regis is tired™ of his two mates deciding to be all stoic and deal with their problems poorly without his help.  </p><p>This chapter fought me relentlessly.  I'm still not exactly thrilled with how it turned out.  There will probably be 1-2 more chapters after this point.  I might also write an epilogue that edges into nsfw territory.  Let me know if you guys would be interested in that, or if y'all want any nsfw content to be relegated to a companion fic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">The wash of dappled amber tones from the steadily crackling fire permeated him with warmth and lethargy.On the horizon, just beyond the encircling grove of trees, was a low-hanging waning gibbous moon so luminous that it dominated the landscape outside of their little ring of light in an eerie glow.So close was the moon to kissing the hilltop that they’d camping in the shadow of that it appeared nested at the crest. </p><p class="p1">The slow thrum of lute strings played idly, accompanied by the singing of summer insects, with no particular melody in mind, knits the hansa together in contentment.Before him, a small cooking cauldron gurgles and bubbles where it has been positioned atop the fire; its contents are admittedly a mystery to him, though it smells delicious and he is famished.</p><p class="p1">Behind him, a warm presence cradles him full-body-flush against another, his back pressed into the other’s front and a long pair of legs snugly frame either side of his waist.Two hands gently card through his loose hair, savoring the glide of locks and disentangling knots with clever fingers.The mixed aroma of wormwood, basil, sage, and aniseed drifts past his nostrils and all at once he relaxes back into Regis’ welcoming arms. </p><p class="p1">The vibration of a warm chuckle tickles his ears as well as sends a shiver of thrill through all the points where their bodies relax into one another.The impulse to turn in the vampire’s hold and thoroughly explore the other’s lips is only subsided by drowsy warmth and the knowledge that there will be plenty of time for kisses, and <em>other</em> delightful things, later.As if reading his thoughts, an affectionate press of lips is bestowed on the crown of his head.He rumbles in approval.</p><p class="p1">“Look at the two of you,” Dandelion pipes wistfully, having halted plucking at strings to send his regards from across the fire.“Like a pair of Zerrikanian love birds, preening and sighing to each other.It’s positively saccharine.”</p><p class="p1">“Disgustingly so,” Milva groans as she pointed looks the other way.</p><p class="p1">“If not a bit banal,” Cahir nods sagely as he absently tosses a twig into the flames.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t remember asking for a critique,” Geralt deadpans. </p><p class="p1">A twinge of annoyance comes and goes quickly; he is hard-pressed to feel anything other than a lull of serenity in the current state.A clear bright night surrounded by good company.Company that he’d come to dearly yearn for and treasure over the years.</p><p class="p1">“Lucky for you then, our services come free of charge,” Angoulême chimes in with a cheeky grin as she gestures at him with a wooden spoon that, having just recently been stirring their simmering dinner, sends an unimpressive splattering of broth hissing and spitting into the fire.</p><p class="p1">“Service in what capacity?” Geralt humored her as he shifted in Regis’ arms to better rest his head on the other’s shoulder.He catches a small peek of fangs from a smile out of the corner of his eye and has to suppress an answering grin.</p><p class="p1">“Why, to beleaguer our leader!To vex him so thoroughly that he may never run the risk of developing delusions of grandeur about his humble place in this world,” Dandelion all but sings with a theatric spread of arms in gesture to the Witcher.</p><p class="p1">“Right company of mutinous misfits I keep.Some lot you all are; gleefully decry me sullen one moment, but scoff when I find something to smile for,”Geralt snorts dryly.</p><p class="p1">“And there, the chief misfit!” Angoulême manages through an almost vulgar snort.</p><p class="p1">“Agreed.There’s the Witcher we remember!Will fight monsters, armies, and bandits with not but stoicism, silver, and steel.But hit him with some gentle ribbing and it’s beyond his capacity to cope.”So saying, Milva flicks a small pinecone in his direction, which successfully pries a grunt of indignation from said Witcher when it hits his neck and almost falls down the front of his threadbare shirt.</p><p class="p1">“I’ll thank you to forgive us sentimental old men the concession of a few, paltry expressions of affection.No grandeur here, I assure you,” Regis entreats diplomatically as he discards the offending pinecone before returns to gathering up sections of Geralt’s hair to methodically form a modest plait.</p><p class="p1">“Oi, nuncle!You’re doing it all wrong!A proper braid starts at the back of the head, not the temple.”Having abandoned the stirring spoon to slowly sink into the cauldron, Angoulême clambers over to Regis and Geralt’s side.</p><p class="p1">“My dear, I will remind you that I am a barber-surgeon by trade, and thus know hair just as adequately as anatomy,” the vampire huffs good-naturedly though with no small bit of condescension.</p><p class="p1">“Barbers cut hair; no one said nothing about them styling it.And from the looks of your chops, nuncle, that’s a weak point in your repertoire.”</p><p class="p1">“Hm, and I suppose your wild tresses are meant to inspire much confidence?”</p><p class="p1">“Angoulême, go braid Milva or Dandelion’s hair if you’re so inclined to paw at someone,” Geralt says with a put-upon sigh, much to the noises of offense from the bard and archer.</p><p class="p1">“And watch your fingers!Though his paramour is a vampire, the Witcher looks ready to bite them off!” Cahir cautions as he rescues the spoon from a potential watery grave before giving the cauldron’s contents a final stir and a tasting, offering a second spoonful to Dandelion for careful consideration.</p><p class="p1">With an appreciative smack of lips, the bard declares, “soups done!”</p><p class="p1">“At last!I’d feared my stomach was starting to gnaw a hole right through me,” Milva says, eagerly accepting a steaming portioned-out bowl from Dandelion.</p><p class="p1">What follows is a time of contentment and idle chatter as each eagerly dives into their respective bowls.</p><p class="p1">He missed this.Nights where the troubles of the world, while still looming, could be temporarily swept aside.Inside this haven of light and the silence fleeting between level prattle.Though the company is clearly different, it reminds him in no small part of the winter nights of his childhood at Kaer Morhen, wherein the snow came down around the keep and muffled the world in ambient stillness and he’d nape before the grand fireplace with a half-dozen others his age and the familiar soft murmurs of older Witchers, and was promised the safety to dream.</p><p class="p1">Recollections of a simpler time coalesce and join with the present, and he is so content, so happy in this moment, free from any underlying bitter twinge that might rob him of this place of peace.</p><p class="p1">But something <em>shifts</em>, ever so slightly, like the drop in air pressure that signals a storm.</p><p class="p1">He is cold.Despite facing the fire and the body that he is pressed against, heat leeches from his skin in such a way that the veins in his arms purple like a bruise under the moonlight.</p><p class="p1">Aches and pains, now remembered, jump to the forefront of his conciseness, having been building steadily in severity for some time beneath the veneer of respite. </p><p class="p1">To test a dread-tinged theory, he samples the soup, but it tastes of nothing… or rather, something half-recalled and fading for memory.Subsequent mouthfuls only worsen this sensation, and yet, the yawning pit in his stomach is all the more empty for it, and nearer to the point of nausea than fullness. </p><p class="p1">He says nothing and sets the bowl aside, only then understanding that all has gone quiet. </p><p class="p1">He quickly looks around to assess the situation.To determine what, if anything, might have caused his friends to lapse into silence.The night is still; unnaturally so, as the insects and nocturnal noises of before have all but vanished into the dark.Even the fire seems sickeningly lifeless, having been reduced to a dim constant glimmer beneath the cauldron’s weight.</p><p class="p1">He then takes in the faces of those around him; each expression ranging from sedate to grave to anxious.He breaks from the grip of Regis’ arms, ignoring with a pang how the vampire is reluctant to let him go, and searches the barber-surgeon’s guarded countenance. </p><p class="p1">None speak, though all attention is on him.</p><p class="p1">“Why?”He searches hollowly for some answer in their eyes. </p><p class="p1">Why had they stopped?What has disrupted this meticulously crafted scene?Did he not deserve this— a rest, a time to recapture that piece of simpler times?Did he not deserve them?Deserve this? </p><p class="p1">He looks into the eyes of the other’s, to ask this.His faulty memory conjuring images with stutters and stops— Milva pierced through the gut by a red-fletched arrow, pooling out an impossible amount of blood— Cahir’s head bisected, cranial bleeding almost as ghastly as the slice to his jugular— Angoulême’s life fleeing from a femoral artery wound, dead with tears welling at her eyes— Regis as a melted, amorphous lump half-fused into a castle column, the sick pop and sizzle of his flesh just perceptible past the Witcher’s screams—</p><p class="p1">One-by-one, where they had once been before him, in a blink they are gone; like the ghostly after-image of a candle’s flame after it’s been extinguished.</p><p class="p1">The last glimpse he gets of Regis’ face is that of tears, wept like a warped memory of the ghost he’d pursued into death.Into all their deaths.</p><p class="p1">All succumb to silence. </p><p class="p1">There is nothing left but the waning moon in the sky, the barren land it illuminates, and the Witcher.</p><p class="p1">And though his feet stay planted firmly in the dust and the glow, he feels himself fall to pieces.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">He is unsure if he is awake or merely in the thrall of another nightmare.</p><p class="p1">This time at least feels real, what with the bone-deep ache of his body stiffly sprawled on an icy floor.The hollow of his stomach reminds him that he hasn’t eaten a proper meal in… some time, difficult as it is to judge the passage of days crammed in a perpetually dark, closet-sized cell where he can’t even fully extend his legs without standing. </p><p class="p1">All the quality accommodations one might come to expect inside Toussaint’s prison.</p><p class="p1">This was not the first time that he’d woken up in solitary confinement disoriented and on the verge of a breakdown after relentless bad dreams.Indeed, some variant or other of the very dream he’d just experienced seemed to be a favorite of his tortured mind.The hansa, assembled once more, making merry in a variety of settings— from the ancient depths of Brokilon, to Regis’ modest hut in Fen Carn, Riverdell forest, Beauclair Palace… always ending more or less the same— with Geralt alone and grasping at the inevitable.If it was a particularly unpleasant night, he would relive Stygga Castle in its entirety.</p><p class="p1">At one point, he had so disturbed those outside the walls of his cell that guards had come and dragged him away, to this smaller space, further from the sounds of life and where not even a shed of light crept through the outline of the door.</p><p class="p1">Here his days and nights and spans of time indeterminate have passed with only the heavy metal slot at the bottom of the door sliding aside and granting him thin gruel and water to mark the end of one nightmare and the beginning of another.</p><p class="p1">And so now, as his breath catches in his throat, too claustrophobically close to allow for proper air intake, he is certain he was still dreaming… for from the dark, two spots of light glow like a pair of luminous eyes. </p><p class="p1">Even Geralt’s enhanced Witcher sight can’t make out a corporal shape holds the twin lightings aloft, or perhaps his mind has finally cracked in the waking hours as well. </p><p class="p1">“Regis?” </p><p class="p1">The name is barely recognizable through his grating voice, and the effort only serves to remind him of how desperately thirsty he is.His throat spasms and he coughs and chokes weakly into the filthy floor.</p><p class="p1">He looks up again, hopeful, but the eyes haven’t moved.</p><p class="p1">He reaches forward, but his questing fingers encounter no resistance through the air up until they hit the solid wood of the door.He is undeterred, if Regis were truly here, he needn’t make himself entirely physical— a form of partial mist would make more sense in this confined space.</p><p class="p1">“Regis…”</p><p class="p1">He tries to raise his voice, but it just comes out as a whimper.</p><p class="p1">The Witcher sits in the dark for a nebulous interval of time.He drifts between dozing and rocking awake, searching the darkness, and pinpointing what he thinks might be the vague points of light in the dark.He’ll repeat Regis’ name a few more times before his muddled mind drifts beneath the surface of consciousness again, and the process repeats.</p><p class="p1">At some point, he is awoken by the sound of footsteps just before the dry wrenching of metal in metal clicks the lock open and the closet-cell is flooded with torchlight.The pain that blinds his eyes is tantamount to chugging Superior Cat potion under the noonday sun.He gages and nearly heaves the meager contents of his stomach to the floor in protest before shielding his eyes as best he can in his hands.</p><p class="p1">“Hold the torch back you fool!”</p><p class="p1">“What does it matter?He’ll be brought out into the light soon enough, let him stumble on the way.It’s the least of what scum like him deserve.”</p><p class="p1">“Bite your tongue or for its wagging you’ll one day end up in his position!This man has not yet been sentenced.As such we will treat him with at least some civility.”</p><p class="p1">“If the Captain has come bearing good news, the Witcher should appreciate the light while he can.” </p><p class="p1">“Aye, but that is not for us to decide.Here, Witcher, for you.Finish quick and come along.”</p><p class="p1">A mug of water is pressed into his hands, and slowly, with the kinder of the two guards bodily shielding the torchlight, he eagerly accepts the offering.He almost chugs the mug in its entirety, but must stop for an extended period as his stomach rebels violently.All the while the torchbearer mutters curses under his breath.</p><p class="p1">What little charity was afforded to him is stripped away as the guard who offered the water sets to bind his hands behind his back where the rope chafes acutely against bruises and wounds, not the least of which he gained while thrashing in his sleep. </p><p class="p1">He walks to his sentencing with a surprisingly calm mind.Given the turbulent life of Witchers, knowing when and where one is to meet his end is almost a comparative luxury.His death would be quick in the sense that there would be no slow bleeding out from cleaved flesh or the slow creep of toxins sending him into death rattles.No— one swift severance between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae and it would be lights out.</p><p class="p1">He gets a close and personal reminder of this as he is paraded past an execution in progress.The <em>sinc</em> of a well-honed axe blade through meat, bone, and arterial spray is enough to roil the water in his stomach anew.A cleaner death a Witcher could not ask for, but sadistic in its simplicity.One that will surely be his lot to the end of life as he is led before one Captain Damien de la Tour and released from his bonds.</p><p class="p1">Their conversation is terse and sets to continue to scrape the scalp of the true matter— Syanna’s fate by the hand’s of the Witcher’s incompetence— the trust of the Duchy— of the duchess— of Damien himself; a surprising turn of events given the Captain treated him as an interloper from the very beginning.He finds that, now being made aware of that trust, losing the Captain’s confidence stung much more than it reasonably should have.All points of fact that have weighed heavy on Geralt’s conscience since that unfortunate night.</p><p class="p1">“I’m sorry,” he says after the Captain has run out of steam and reverts to a glowering silence.“You might not believe me, but I couldn’t have predicted that turn of events.I certainly never wanted that.”</p><p class="p1">It is an admission that turns weakly in the air between them.From the twitch of a deepening scowl that must tug painfully at his new facial scars, Damien does not accept this excuse in the slightest.</p><p class="p1">“Enough,” the Captain says, brusquely dismissing him.“We shall speak of it no more.”</p><p class="p1">“Guess there’s been a decision in my case,” the Witcher prompts.If the Captain was determined to remain unmoved by his remorse, then they weren’t here for idle chatter.Perhaps this was some sick closure on Damien’s part— checking for repentance before sending Geralt off to the chopping block.</p><p class="p1">It was then a surprise, to say the least, to hear that his case had been determined by a court and not the duchess.How that was swung, he’d never guess… except maybe by some friendly intervention, vampiric or otherwise…</p><p class="p1">Otherwise indeed.</p><p class="p1">For perched like a bejeweled bird atop the guard-post railing behind him is, of all people, Dandelion.</p><p class="p1">“Sheesh, Geralt, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” and the cocky smile fades from the bard’s lips as he doubtless takes in the pitiful state of the Witcher.</p><p class="p1">But Geralt couldn’t care less, for it truly was like seeing a ghost.A specter that has lurked within the haunted hollows of his dreams for some time now.Dandelion had not died at Stygga with the others because he’d never been there.But all the same, in Geralt’s warped dreams the bard always disappeared with the others.Waking with a panic in the night left his assurances of his remaining friend’s safety quite shaken. </p><p class="p1">More surreal now was the poet’s casual appearance once more in Toussaint.A timeless glimpse of the past, though the both of them are visibly older through careworn years.To say the least that the setting of this reunion is a prison and not, say, a palace.</p><p class="p1">“A ghost wouldn’t have surprised me half as much, I promise you,” and so saying, Geralt grabs his friend and embraces him for all he’s worth.</p><p class="p1">Dandelion accepts and reciprocates wholeheartedly, granting Geralt a fair amount of grace given the Witcher’s decidedly unkempt state.</p><p class="p1">It is through Dandelion that he gleans the totality of his situation, decided within the court while he, the defendant, languished for three weeks in a cell under the ever-taut noose.Of course, the bard expressed, several times over, that he had and still was risking his very neck just by stepping foot in Toussaint, let alone by furthering the duchesses displeasure with the audacity to defend the duchy’s least favorite Witcher.</p><p class="p1">Geralt is more than impressed.By all rights he should be a dead man walking, his fate more firmly sealed than ever before.But alas, trust wordsmith and charismatic force of nature, Dandelion, to successfully argue him out of prison, with the added bonus of retaining his estate.</p><p class="p1">Geralt liked to think this was repayment for all the times he’d pulled the bard from the gallows of Toussaint, Flotsam, Oxenfurt, and the many a time wherein some scorned party or another deemed the troublesome poet fit to kill.Though true friendship wasn’t in counting the number of close calls one adverted over the other.That said, Geralt felt he at least owed his friend as many bottles of wine as a cart could hold to load up and take with him back to Novigrad… that is, whenever the bard at last vexed the duchess enough to need to beat a hasty retreat.</p><p class="p1">Speaking of which.</p><p class="p1">“How is it that you knew to come here?You would have had to leave Novigrad right away to make it here in less than three weeks to come to my defense,” Geralt asks slowly.He’s sure of the answer, but needs the confirmation all the same.</p><p class="p1">“Regis, if you can believe it!He came to see me right after they locked you up.He told me everything and, naturally, I couldn’t possibly leave you to whatever terrible fate Anarietta might choose.It was grueling, I tell you.Regis was there every bit of the way, running me ragged— fetching us fresh horses at each town, not allowing for a stop until well into the night, and shaking me awake at the crack of dawn.He hardly allotted me time to answer nature’s call when there was a scrap of light left in the sky!A truly terrifying taskmaster all around, but ruthlessly effective.Following his itinerary, we just managed to arrive in time to intervene on your behalf.”</p><p class="p1">When Regis had held him close as their collective world fell apart in the ruins of Tesham Mutna, Geralt hadn’t considered for a moment that the vampire’s assurances might have included their mutual bard friend.But then again, if the duchess’s fondness for Dandelion outweighed her rage, something that had found a much more satisfying target in the Witcher, then who was he to question the method behind this madness?It was a gamble that paid off, and he couldn’t be more grateful.</p><p class="p1">“Incidentally, where is Regis?Is he here with you?” </p><p class="p1">Logically, Geralt knew that the vampire wouldn’t risk incurring the wrath of the Captain of the Ducal Guard by showing his face anywhere Damien might be, out of sight out of mind as it were, but surely he was near.The handful of ravens that alighted every now and again upon the prison’s crenellations were conspicuous enough to any observer in the know.</p><p class="p1">“Gone,” the bard sniffed exasperation.“As soon as your verdict was passed down he claimed to have some other pressing business and left without so much as a ‘congratulations and fare-thee-well, Dandelion!’.Honestly, I feel rather hurt to be so thoroughly dismissed.Oh, but he did leave a note for you.”</p><p class="p1">Numbly, Geralt takes the proffered note.He feels as though the blood has drained from him through the bottom of his feet as he takes in the scant few sentences.</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Geralt,</em>
</p><p class="p2">
  <em>If you are reading these words, then it stands to reason that Dandelion was successful in freeing you from imprisonment without impediment.Worry not, if the Duchess attempts to invalidate your sentence, I have numerous contingency plans in place.Even without my presence, you will never be without my protection.Not any longer.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em> Forgive an old vampire his folly, but I need time to come to terms with everything that has occurred.To that end, I have taken your advice.Upon assurance of your safety I depart to seek out Dettlaff.My mate needs me now, as I need him.I thank you for granting us the opportunity of reunion, though the price is bittersweet and not lost on either of us.This is not goodbye by any means, but rather a fond farewell until conditions see us next meet.</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Dearest regards,</em>
</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy</em>
</p><p class="p1">Dandelion says something to the effect of catching up with him later, to which he hears himself agree.He follows the guards to the prison’s portcullis exit, wherein he gathers together his possessions and departs, all without a word.</p><p class="p1">To travel by foot back to Corvo Bianco would take the better part of a day, and carry the unfortunate drawback of cutting through Beauclair’s port district, at the very least.Nearly dead on his feet and unwilling to track down a boat to borrow, he finds himself wondering a familiar path.</p><p class="p1">Winding, away, into the hills.</p><p class="p1">Beneath the shade of boughs and along stretches of summer sun.</p><p class="p1">Past creek beds and road dust.</p><p class="p1">Till at last—</p><p class="p1">Ancient headstones crop up from the overgrowth to greet him, promising a rest from his dispirited thoughts.But he has escaped the grave, for today, and instead descends into the earth for selfish reasons.</p><p class="p1">He’d almost hoped that Regis’ little hovel had been packed up and left empty, a shell scrubbed clean of the Vampire’s identity, perhaps to confirm his nightmares.But here in Mère-Lachaiselongue Cemetery, all is just as the vampire left it.All his books are neatly organized on shelves, save the teetering stack left by the bedside.Herbs and alchemical ingredients still clutter his workspace in haphazard arrangement.A half chopped pile of what he’s sure must be cortinarius mushrooms remains frozen in time upon a cutting board, the knife discarded not inches away, waiting for their owner to pick them up again and resume. </p><p class="p1">Even an oil lantern remains lit upon the tiny table wherein they both first sat and considered Dettlaff’s severed hand.He looks at the lantern, its fuel was almost run out.Before long it would plunge this place into darkness.</p><p class="p1">He walks over to the bed and, on impulse, takes up a fistful of the roughspun sheets and brings them to his nose.</p><p class="p1">wormwood, basil, sage, and aniseed.And something else, something distinctively <em>Regis</em>.</p><p class="p1">He chokes back a wounded sound and lets the bed take his collapsing weight.Past the turmoil, the agony, and waring self-pity and self-loathing, he tries to stifle himself and hold it all in, but it is a losing battle.</p><p class="p1">In the dark of the crypt, as the lamp runs dry and winks out, the Witcher gives voice to his anguish until there is nothing left but the bones of hollow misery. </p><p class="p1">He wills his exhaustion into sleep.</p><p class="p1">Because at least there, in his recurring nightmares, for a brief time, he’ll get to hold Regis again.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">Before he’s fully cognizant of the passage of time, a month has passed since his verdict and subsequent release.</p><p class="p1">To say he’d kept himself busy would be an understatement.</p><p class="p1">A bevy of neighbors, most of whom he’d personally helped with Witcher’s work within his time in Toussaint, were more than willing to look past his ill reputation and offer him contracts.After all, as the duchess herself once declared, in this duchy, wine is sacred, and anything threatening a vineyard’s integrity, be it human threats or monstrous ones, was a matter of grave seriousness.Geralt, thankful for the distraction and the generous coin, threw himself into becoming the unofficial one-man-security-force for a handful of estates up and down the valley.</p><p class="p1">Everyone benefited from the arrangement, but it wasn’t enough. </p><p class="p1">To distract himself further, he jumped full force into the renovation of Corvo Bianco with fervor, suggesting as many projects to Barnabas-Basil as could be conceivably implemented onto the estate without running the risk of overstepping. </p><p class="p1">He even took on a handful of the projects himself, at least, those that his majordomo felt he could be entrusted with without supervision.He took to repairing fences, replacing rusted door hinges, walking the fields and inspecting the crops, tending to his expanded herb garden, and even assisting Marlene in the kitchen whenever his gracious cook had the patience for his meddling.</p><p class="p1">After a time, Dandelion comes by to fulfill the promise of ‘catching up’.And after treating his friend to a few too many shared bottles of wine and an expertly crafted mutton leg dinner, curtesy of Marlene— that has the two of them extolling her virtues with increasing enthusiasm until the cook makes a humble retreat between embarrassed and delighted smiles— the full story spills from his intoxicant-loosened lips.He tells Dandelion everything, or well, near everything.He’s sure to leave out the part about Regis drinking his blood, convinced that such an admission may provoke the bard’s old paranoia about the vampire. </p><p class="p1">He also tries to leave out the part about his long-developing feeling for said vampire, but Dandelion’d always been quite a bit more emotionally intelligent than him, and quickly reads between the lines.</p><p class="p1">“Oh no, I’ve seen this chain of events all too often at this point.You can’t be serious, Geralt!Of all people, <em>Regis?”</em></p><p class="p1">“Yes, <em>Regis.</em>Of course, <em>Regis.</em>And what do you mean <em>of all people?</em>”Now that the cat was out of the proverbial bag, Geralt sees no reason to deny it.What did Dandelion know of love anyway?He jumped from bed to bed with little time to sleep besides.Not that Geralt was much better, but couldn’t his friend see that he was in love?</p><p class="p1">Evidently, he’d said a fair amount of this out loud as the bard offered him a snort and a smirk, before declaring “I’ve seen you <em>‘in love’</em>, Geralt of Rivia, with a dozen or more individuals within as many years.Some, not the least of which, are dear friends of mine, that I’ve had to awkwardly console after you’d swept them away in a whirlwind of passion, only to leave behind them just as quickly!The number of ‘<em>loves’</em> you’ve had since I’ve known you, even while you were supposedly attached to one sorceress or another, could easily rival mine!”</p><p class="p1">“You’re full of shit, Dandelion.I could never match your number,” the Witcher deflects moodily and poured another measure.</p><p class="p1">“True enough, I suppose,” the bard mutters into his upturned glass.</p><p class="p1">“Besides, this is different.It feels different with Regis, you know?”</p><p class="p1">“No.” </p><p class="p1">“It’s like… with everyone else it was like being in the middle of a winter storm and trying to warm myself with a shot of alcohol.Something strong, like spirits…”</p><p class="p1">“I don’t know about you but I’m feeling plenty warm right now,” the bard snickers.</p><p class="p1">“Like strong spirits— effective in an instant, puts a fire in your gut and makes your head swim all nice, but before long you’d just be all the more cold for it.And you try another gulp and another until you’re in the throes of hypothermia and sick as a dog besides…”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Can</em> Witchers catch hypothermia?”</p><p class="p1">“Yes, of course we can.”</p><p class="p1">“Better drink up then.Don’t want you to catch cold.”</p><p class="p1">“But that’s just it!” the Witcher gestures drunkenly.“With every other relationship I’ve had, it’s always been a punch of warmth and then just cold.With Regis, it's different.Regis is like… Regis is like being wrapped head to toe in thick furs, and feather stuffed blankets, and quilts that smell like home.Regis is the warmth of limbs entwined and a soft puff of breath before and after a kiss…”</p><p class="p1">“Uh…”</p><p class="p1">“All I know is that every serious attempt at a relationship I’ve had has to some degree been predicated on everyone wanting to change me.Triss manipulated me, even before my amnesia.And after, well, I just couldn’t play the part anymore.I couldn’t trust her.It hurt too much.And Yennefer… the person she wants me to be, well, he doesn’t exist.Not really.And when I tried to be that person and failed, she’d be disappointed.And when I flat-out refused to be that person, she’d get angry.”</p><p class="p1">Dandelion offers him a supportive hand on his shoulder and silence to gather his thoughts. </p><p class="p1">“But with Regis,” he begins again slowly, “with Regis it’s different.He’s never tried to change me.Not <em>me</em> me, anyway.Not even in the beginning, remember?He challenged me to be a better person, to change my outlook on the world, and to grow from hardship rather than stagnate in grief and stubbornness.And he did all that, not through making demands of me, but by being a better person himself and leading by example and empathy.And I am a better person, I’d like to think, because of him!And I don’t know, Dandelion, somewhere along the line these feelings just started to grow.And seeing him again, after thinking he was dead for years, it just brought it all back…”</p><p class="p1">“Sounds serious, Geralt.Have you told him any of this?”</p><p class="p1">“No.At least, not in so many words.Gods, what if he doesn’t know?Did I screw this all up, Dandelion?Is there no hope?”</p><p class="p1">“What would I know?Way I see it, you’ve lived so long in denial that you forgot that not everyones a mindreader like your little sorceress.”</p><p class="p1">“Not mine.Honestly, she never was.”The Witcher grumbles while peeking down the neck of the bottle clutched in his hand.He didn’t want to think any longer on just how completely he’d managed to screw up his love life, past and present.</p><p class="p1">“Suppose not.Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it, Geralt, you know that.By comparison, Regis is lovely, I’m sure… for anyone into that sort of thing.”</p><p class="p1">“What, men?”</p><p class="p1">“No, vampires.”</p><p class="p1">After a beat of silence, they sputter and devolve into raucous laughter.</p><p class="p1">Eventually, they move on to further topics, such as the goings-on of life in Novigrad, the success of The Chameleon, and Priscilla’s ongoing recovery.The latter of which is a subject that moves the bard to tears. </p><p class="p1">As the hour becomes more early than late, Geralt clumsily assists (carries) his friend up to the guest bedroom— between drunken hiccups and slurred declarations of <em>Gods I love her, Geralt.It’s real this time.She’s the one for me—</em> to which he agrees that if anyone who could tolerate Dandelion for as long as Priscilla had, they were either a genuine saint or in it for the long haul.Or both.</p><p class="p1">“I hope things work out between you and Regis, Geralt.‘Cause I’ve never felt anything quite like this with ‘Cilla…this happiness… and you should get that too,” the bard mumbles to the ceiling as the Witcher helps him out of his boots before throwing a blanket over him.</p><p class="p1">“Thanks, Dandelion.I hope so too.”</p>
<hr/><p class="p2">Dandelion hangs around the estate for a week before showing a surprising amount of discipline in declaring his vacation over, citing the desire to travel north at a much more leisurely pace than his arrival.Geralt also suspected that the dwindling stores of personal wine collection, and the increasing anxiety with which the bard avoided Beauclair, were additional reasons for the hasty departure.</p><p class="p1">The bard, for all his many virtues and vices, had certainly livened up the place during his stay, and Geralt was reluctant to see him leave.But needs must, and The Bard Dandelion stops for no one.Except now perhaps for Priscilla, back home to which said bard was taking a lovely assortment of wine.Geralt could only hope his friend didn’t end up the target of every brigand and enterprising thief this side of the Pontar along his journey.</p><p class="p1">The reminder of his friend’s cheer and blossoming love life, contrasted his own failed relationship— failed even before it’d truly began— set Geralt back into his anxious need for distraction.</p><p class="p1">Unwilling to pause and think too deeply of it, he constructed the fire pit he once envisioned in idle daydreams. </p><p class="p1">The result was crude, to say the least.But season after season of patching up walls around the crumbling keep of Kaer Morhen brought with it the confidence that the pit would stand firm and serve well.He hefted a few good-sized rough-hewn rocks about the pit, placing them in a semicircle facing away out into the river valley, where the setting sun hit the fields in a breathtaking array of natural beauty.Just close enough to the house to nip back and forth for more wine and just secluded enough to grant the illusion of privacy.</p><p class="p1">He allows himself a moment, sticky with sweat and dirt but satisfied with a job well-done, to sit at the unlit fire pit and picture it aglow in the depth of night.A glass in hand, a bottle pouring out a measure, a laugh on his lips, and an answering sound of mirth from beside him.They’d toast to the completion of his silly little project and while away the hours beneath the stars.At some point, the suggestion of calling it a night would be proposed, wherein a hand up would be offered to him.They’d stumble and giggle and shush each other, hand in hand, up to the main house like errant teenagers sneaking in the night.The hand would lead him into the house, past the bedroom door, and only leave the tangle of their fingers to reach for a now-familiar place on his shoulder.</p><p class="p1">It is then that he realizes that it is not sweat that drips down his face, leaving trails from his eyes through the dirt smudging his cheeks.</p><p class="p1">Gods, he could really use something strong to drink right about now.If he was lucky, he might still have some White Gull stored away among his alchemical ingredients in the cellar laboratory.</p><p class="p1">With this thought in mind, he scrubs his face harshly a few times between callus-rough hands and drags himself away before he can spiral any further.</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">His first tip-off that something was amiss should have been the dozens of ravens spotting the roof of the estate’s main house.However, given that he’s running late to meet up with a neighbor in regards to an outbreak of giant centipedes in his vineyard, his eyes pass right over the birds with little notice.</p><p class="p1">The birds didn’t mean anything necessarily.Just an unkindness stopping over for a rest before continuing across the valley.</p><p class="p1">He puts the birds, and their association, firmly out of mind.</p><p class="p1">It’s nearing dusk when he walks Roach up the path to the stable.They’re both tired, sweaty, and more or less mud-encrusted— more so for him given that at one point a giant centipede had snatched him up between its mandibles and dragged him down into its hole.The ensuing hunt through the insectoid tunnels was claustrophobic and messy.The only saving grace being that the centipedes couldn’t easily dodge his yrden trap with only one direction to attack him from.</p><p class="p1">Unfortunately, in all the excitement Roach had thrown a shoe in the muddy terrain.Riding back was out of the question, dooming the two to a slow walk home.Luckily, the mare appeared no worse for wear and even perked up upon passing into the estate courtyard.With a pleased nicker, she all but pulls Geralt off his feet to hurry to the stable and the fresh hay awaiting her.</p><p class="p1">It’s too late in the evening to bother the farrier, so the shoe will have to wait till morning, but he wastes no time in removing her tack and brushing her down.Picking the hard-packed earth from her hooves is an exercise in patience for the both of them— for her in that the Witcher was interrupting her hard-won dinner, and for him in that he didn’t necessarily want his feet trodden.</p><p class="p1">So when he becomes increasingly distracted by a raised voice coming from the main house, his first reaction is annoyance rather than concern.It is only with the slamming of the front door, which causes a number of ravens to take flight and cry out in alarm, that he curses, fumbles the pick, raises, and slowly registers that something felt distinctly <em>off.</em></p><p class="p1">He catches sight of his majordomo swiftly making his way toward him.Something has the normally unflappable Barnabas-Basil supremely flustered, and Geralt is immediately on the alert.</p><p class="p1">“Sir, pardon the intrusion, but there are a pair of individuals at the house that have been insistent on awaiting your arrival for most of the day.When I express that they’d, unfortunately, missed you this morning and ask if they might be willing to leave a message, perhaps to make an appointment for another time, They simply refused and insisted they’d wait.I have done my best to accommodate this situation with all due respect as acting host in your absence, but I do not know what to say, sir.This is all most irregular.”</p><p class="p1">“Did these individuals say who they were and what they wanted?”</p><p class="p1">“It was only disclosed that they were dear friends and that they must speak with you urgently.”</p><p class="p1">He moves to the house with renewed energy and hesitates only but for a moment before he throws open the door with barely restrained force.More ravens shoot into the air, but the noise of harsh wingbeats and caws cannot hope to hide the small sound from within of sharply indrawn breath.</p><p class="p1">Before him, sitting at the long dining table, divested of overcoats and politely sipping from much too small teacups while evidently having been caught up in attentive conversation with a cheerfully cordial Marlene, are none other than Dettlaff and Regis.</p><p class="p1">There is a beat of silence that only breaks as Dettlaff slowly lowers his teacup back down to its decorative saucer with a soft <em>tink</em> of porcelain.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt,” Regis all but exhales his name.His expression is a mix of disbelief, hesitation, and something so heartbreakingly sweet— as if Geralt is the most surreal aspect of this moment.As if Geralt is the one prone to evaporating into thin air. </p><p class="p1">As if he is a ghost from a dream.</p><p class="p1">“My dear, please, join us.There is much we need to discuss.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Well, one chapter left to go from here... and the epilogue, of course.  I will do my best to have those both done at the same time to wrap everything up in a nice little bow for y'all.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">Regis is here.</p><p class="p1">He should be thrilled— and he is. </p><p class="p1">His heart is beating so rapidly that he can hear his own pulse pounding in his ears.He feels both overwhelmingly flushed with heat and numb at the edges of his fingers and toes.Sweat beads at his hairline as adrenaline demands action, <em>any</em> action. </p><p class="p1">He’s never experienced a fever born of sickness in his life, at least as far back as he can remember, but from what he knows of the condition, it must feel something like this; this flush just under his skin that is akin to a toxic overdose…</p><p class="p1">Regis, whom he was forced to leave behind just as his life was thought to be at its end.Who orchestrated his salvation only to leave once more; to beg his understanding, asking for time and space to work things out.And Geralt would give that to him, without question, because there wasn’t a thing that Regis could ask of him at this point that he wouldn’t do…</p><p class="p1">But here, sipping tea with Dettlaff at his elbow, at Geralt’s dining table, as if the three weeks Geralt spent in prison wracked with nightmares of losing everything— that which he had already lost, time and again, and the ones who came back to life, and for a brief moment, returned to him—.Only to have his nightmares confirmed, and to lose his friend anew. </p><p class="p1">To leave him with a kiss and a note, then to come back and act as if Geralt’s world wasn’t in danger of shaking to bits.</p><p class="p1">The small tentative smile on Regis’ lips fades at the same rate that his eyebrows crease along familiar worry lines.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt,” and his voice is so soft, almost patronising with concern, “please sit.”</p><p class="p1">But the adrenaline seeks an outlet, and there’s an obvious escape route here.</p><p class="p1">“What’s <em>he</em> doing here?”</p><p class="p1">And though the venom of his ire is directed at Dettlaff, it is Regis who visibly winces.</p><p class="p1">“I promise you, my dear, that I will explain everything, including Dettlaff’s presence, all in due course.But please, Geralt, you must lis—”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Must</em> I?”His inflection shocks even himself, let alone everyone else in the room who all blink with stunned looks.He draws in a shaky breath and comes to a conclusion.“Marlene, please leave the house.Now.”</p><p class="p1">“There’s no need for all this now, Geralt,” Marlene says with sternness.“Dettlaff and Regis here have been nothing but civil to me.A bit curt with Barnabas-Basil, true, but nothing necessitating this kind of reception.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff, for his part, looks alarmed.But rather than the manic hostility that such an emotion would evoke in the vampire, he seemed more likely to bolt, or rather, disappear into mist at any second. </p><p class="p1">At Marlene’s words, the darker vampire makes a motion as if to rise, so saying, “I believe I shou—”</p><p class="p1">But Dettlaff’s words are cut off by the simultaneous movement of Regis’ hand landing on his shoulder and directing the other back down into his seat and Geralt’s grip flashing to the hilt of his silver sword.</p><p class="p1">Everyone freezes again. </p><p class="p1">“Marlene,” the Witcher says through gritted teeth.“You don’t know who he is.You don’t know <em>what</em> he is.”</p><p class="p1">This causes another stunned beat of silence; one, in which, Geralt hopes his kindhearted cook will have the good sense to trust him when he says she <em>must</em> leave.His head aches with the tension in his frame and he’s distantly aware that his breathing is too quick.</p><p class="p1">“I know,” Marlene says slowly and fixes the Witcher with an unimpressed look, “that he is the supposed Beast of Beauclair.”</p><p class="p1">His breath catches in his throat.He looks at her with open surprise.</p><p class="p1">Marlene studies him from eyes that are so much older than his own; eyes that have known misery for far too long.Her smile of fond warmth that had greeted him home has fallen into a fine line.Now she merely looks tired.</p><p class="p1">“Dettlaff and Regis told me everything, Geralt.At first, I was wary,” She concedes.“I am no longer so isolated from others that I do not have an awareness of what happened in the city.It would be hard to ignore, given your involvement in… current events.To say that I was surprised to have a pair of vampires come to the door is no small understatement.But since you were out and we had the time, we got to talking.” </p><p class="p1">Here, Marlene offers said pair of vampires an affable smile before continuing. </p><p class="p1">“As I listened to their tale, a familiar story began to unfold.That of a monster; lost and alone, in pain, and lashing out in that pain, with no one to turn to for help.Of how a Witcher came to that monster and chose to show it empathy rather than treat it as a problem to be eliminated.”</p><p class="p1">She stands then and offers him a small, sharp smile, one much less kind than that offered to the ‘guests’. </p><p class="p1">“That story sounds familiar, doesn’t it, Geralt?I think Dettlaff and I share the privilege of having encountered the same Witcher.One whose been known to deal in mercy rather than blood.”</p><p class="p1">With that, she offers a parting nod to Dettlaff and Regis before turning brusquely to the door. </p><p class="p1">None of them move as she exits, the continuous guttural croaks of ravens and the nightly ambience of summer insects all that is heard before the door shuts tight.</p><p class="p1">With no immediate outlet, the adrenaline in his veins quells.He is distantly aware of his hands, no longer griping his sword, shaking, just perceptibly.Everything stings at his awareness with such acute severity that he has the urge to crawl into the dark of his cellar and wait out the disorientation in stillness.</p><p class="p1">He’d almost thrown everything away; everything that he and Regis so desperately fought for.And for what?His hurt feelings?Was he so selfish that he would threaten Regis’ happiness <em>again</em> out of some self-serving pettiness? </p><p class="p1">Could he sink any lower in his friend’s eyes?</p><p class="p1"><em>This is why he left to begin with,</em> a voice whispers insidiously in his head. </p><p class="p1">The silence of the room is as good as any confirmation to this observation; and he accepts this, because at least the casual cruelty of his doubts is familiar territory.</p><p class="p1">Without conscious thought, the Witcher finds himself sliding heavily into the closest chair, across the table from the silent pair, and sinks his face into his hands.He stays there for a time, with the pressure of his palms against his eyelids, creating pressure and distorted colors on his eyeballs that, while not exactly pleasant, offered its own kind of temporary respite.</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff wasn’t a threat anymore.If it wasn’t clear before, the vampire’s instinctive response to flee rather than rise to Geralt’s aggression was a marked difference from the more violent impulses the other had become known for. </p><p class="p1">That, and the fact that Geralt’s response probably had more to do with the stab of guilt and twisted resentment that sieged his troubled mind upon seeing Regis again.</p><p class="p1">He was loath to admit such vulnerable thoughts aloud though.No need to further diminish his former friend’s opinion of him.</p><p class="p1">Rather, he deflects in the most graceless way possible, as befits the situation.</p><p class="p1">“B.B. said you’ve come to clear up a misunderstanding.That whatever it was, it was urgent.” </p><p class="p1">As he says this with a sigh, he lowers his hands from his face and leans back in the chair in an effort to further calm his prickling agitation.Ideally, he would arrange himself into a meditative stance, but he doubts present company would be terribly impressed with having this conversation while he kneels on the floor.As a compromise, he lets his hands and arms take up the familiar arrangement, relaxing against his thighs, to help steady himself further. </p><p class="p1">He almost <em>wants</em> Regis to rebuke him; to confirm his doubts and leave him, once and for all, to the isolation that he has reliably turned to all his life. </p><p class="p1">The vampire always seemed a wellspring of patience with an endless capacity for forgiveness.Perhaps, the Witcher thinks, perhaps he’s exceeded that capacity this time.</p><p class="p1">“You are upset, and rightly so,” Regis interrupts his thoughts.“Forgive me, Geralt.I was a coward and a fool to have left you as I had, without a satisfactory explanation.But now I will do my utmost to amend the damage I have caused.”And in Regis’ eyes, there is nothing but utter sincerity.</p><p class="p1">This response is so far off the course of the script in Geralt’s head that he struggles to answer. </p><p class="p1">But before he can say anything, Regis continues.</p><p class="p1">“To answer your question with all honesty, if not for Dettlaff’s insistence, I would not have had the courage to be here, before you, and giving you the answers you deserve.”</p><p class="p1">The Witcher turns curious eyes to Dettlaff, taking in the impassive figure with new interest.He raises an eyebrow.“You insisted?”</p><p class="p1">“I would not stand idle and allow Regis to make the same mistakes as I,” Dettlaff says, raising his eyes to meet those of the Witcher.</p><p class="p1">“The mistake of pursuing a human?”Geralt asks before he can think better of it, but his words are no less bitter for their impromptu nature.Better to get to the heart of it rather than prolong this torturous dance all night.</p><p class="p1">“The mistake,” Dettlaff says with considerable care, “of discarding that which is dearest to us because of a misguided belief that it is undeserved.”</p><p class="p1">At these words, Dettlaff’s hand joins with Regis’ and a gentle squeeze is shared between them. </p><p class="p1">They look on each other with such fondness that Geralt can’t help but think of how perfectly they complement one another.He yearns for their happiness just a strongly as the envy in the pit of his gut roils with sickness.</p><p class="p1">“I’m happy for the two of you,” and he is, but the words still feel as though they are wrenched from him, bloody on their way out.“But if this is the misunderstanding that you’ve come to clear up, you needn’t have bothered.Regis, your letter left no uncertainty.I respect that you and Dettlaff are a couple and I will not impose on your relationship.”</p><p class="p1">Somehow, unexpectedly, Regis looks decidedly miserably by the time Geralt has said his piece.For his part, Dettlaff looks somewhat perplexed.</p><p class="p1">“If that is what you wish—”Regis says succinctly at the same time that Dettlaff wonders “why would your involvement be an imposition?”</p><p class="p1">Both vampires look to the other with expressions of bemusement.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t understand,”Dettlaff continues, tilting his head ever so slightly as if visually seeking an answer.“You are our pack; your involvement would only strengthen us as a whole.Is that not what you want, Regis?Witcher?”</p><p class="p1">Pack.</p><p class="p1">That… wasn’t what he’d expected. </p><p class="p1">And yet, it tracked pretty well with what he’d gathered up to this point.The small gestures and intimacies, as if of a language unknown to him— Geralt wondered all along if there’d been something he was missing. </p><p class="p1">This whole recent development in his relationship with Regis felt sudden, and yet somehow, simultaneously, like the inevitable manifestation of their circling fondness for each other.It only stood to reason that Geralt, for all his stunted emotions, missed something so critical as this.</p><p class="p1">The more he thinks of it, the more he warms to the idea of being in a pack. </p><p class="p1">Maybe he hadn’t pushed Regis away quite so completely as he’d feared.</p><p class="p1">Regis, however, looks anything but happy.With Dettlaff’s words hanging in the air, the slighter vampire’s posture turns rigid and his eyes widen with a mix of panic and no small amount of mortification. </p><p class="p1">Dettlaff, seemingly oblivious to the other’s tension, continues with the determination of one arguing a universal truth.</p><p class="p1">“Even if you decide you do not desire to further your bond with Regis, we would welcome you regardless.”</p><p class="p1">Regis stands abruptly.“Dettlaff, <em>please!</em>” he hisses with dismay.</p><p class="p1">The outburst is so out of character that Dettlaff closes his mouth with wide eyes and tangibly increasing bewilderment. </p><p class="p1">Regis looks shocked at his own outburst as his eyes flash between his mate and Geralt, before something gives and the vampire slumps back into his chair and clutches at the table.</p><p class="p1">Geralt sits stunned, feeling as if the breath has been knocked out of him.He notes distantly that Regis’ fingernails have lengthened just a touch and were unintentionally digging grooves into the wood.</p><p class="p1">He knew, intellectually, on some level, that Regis loved him.Or, at least the vampire had said so.That had been one of the last things Regis had said to him before they parted.That he’d <em>fallen in love</em> with Geralt.And what was love to a vampire, at least in the closest sense to what humans understand, if not something that translated into a bond? </p><p class="p1">But to <em>further</em> their bond…</p><p class="p1">Once again, Geralt was trapped in a swooping sensation as one might know after missing the next step in a stairwell and plummeting forward through open air, into the unknown, where landing could only translate into pain.The severity of the pain all depended on which part of him hit the ground first; his feet or his heart. </p><p class="p1">The Witcher means to ask— but he doesn’t know how to parse the question.So all that leaves his throat is a small, inquisitive sound that hangs in the air with about as much grace as a stone.</p><p class="p1">“Geralt,” Regis begins with adverted eyes, “I admit that I have made a terrible mistake and largely… omitted certain aspects of the relationship you and I share.Please, I implore you, allow me to explain everything from the beginning.”</p><p class="p1">Without knowing where the free-fall will take him, he would trust Regis.He always would. </p><p class="p1">He nods his assent.</p><p class="p1">Regis searches his face for a length of time, his brow creased and eyes cast with the lengthening shadows of so many years.He visibly gathers himself together, disengaging his nails from the table and smooths tentative fingertips over the scars left in the woodgrain. </p><p class="p1">“Long ago,” he says slowly, “I once asked if you felt that a sense of guilt and the resulting need for penance were your sole right to claim.I am sure you remember and understand my meaning, but allow me to reiterate for present company and the purposes of this conversation.”</p><p class="p1">He remembers.The culmination of their individual trials by fire.Though Regis took the metaphor a bit literally at the time.Geralt gives him a faint smile.Trust Regis to always favor the more circuitous route through a direct option is apparent.</p><p class="p1">The vampire must take heart from his amusement, as an answering twitch of his lips flashes across his visage before he continues.</p><p class="p1">“When we first met in the necropolis of Fen Carn, I admit that my motives were to… beguile you with the facade of a humble, eccentric old man; meandering through the woods, happily concocting apothecary brews, and none the wiser to the world at large.”</p><p class="p1">To Geralt’s startled amazement, Dettlaff lets out an amused snort at this description, before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. </p><p class="p1">Above all else, seeing the normally dour vampire at ease allows the Witcher’s posture to loosen by gradual degrees.</p><p class="p1">“I had no desire to pique your suspicions,” Regis emphasizes with a pointed gesture, “and thus endeavored to remain a mere footnote in your memory; a face and name that would erode quickly for all its mundanity.That motive changed, however, as the night progressed… that night you all sat in my hut and partook of my spirits, unable to hide the unraveling truth of your mission… and I sensed within my grasp a purpose worthy of investment.”Regis sips his tea and makes a face.“It all sounds rather unscrupulous when put like that.”</p><p class="p1">“I know your meaning, Regis.Please continue, or we will be here all night.”Geralt hopes his teasing isn’t a miscalculation.Judging by the weak smile offered to him, the levity is noted. </p><p class="p1">“Indeed, as you have already surmised, I integrated myself into your fold because I sympathised with your cause and company.My motives were not inherently altruistic; I sought redemption for my past grievances against humanity.”</p><p class="p1">Regis eyes the teacup before him.One fingertip dips into the liquid and swirls the herbal sediment that settled at the bottom with methodical apathy.The Witcher follows the tiny movements as his friend continues.</p><p class="p1">“Logic dictated that if I could redeem myself in the eyes of a Witcher, I might then have made sufficient amends to satiate my own guilty conscience.After all, what did I have to lose, except perhaps another fifty years of unhindered mobility above ground?The only thing that was in danger of injury was my dignity.”</p><p class="p1">Considering the true price of that pursuit of redemption was to be viciously unmade at Vilgefortz’s hands, Geralt would be hard-pressed to say whether or not it was worth it.The Witcher’s eyes meet Dettlaff’s for a fraction of a moment, sharing something left unsaid, before both look away.</p><p class="p1">“But something happened on that journey that I had not anticipated,” Regis admits at length.“I began, inadvertently, to form a pack-bond with the lot of you.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff interrupts with a small, sad noise and a frown. </p><p class="p1">He carefully takes Regis’ hand, still damp with tea drops, and encloses it between his own.Regis doesn’t look away from where his dark eyes burn holes into the table’s surface, but he allows the touch with practiced familiarity.</p><p class="p1">“I couldn’t entirely help it,” Regis confesses with a small voice.“I had fallen out of grace with my fellow vampires long before my ruination, having sufficiently driven them all away with the belligerence born of my addiction.What pack-bonds I had fostered before then were dissolved, thus driving me to further despondency and, consequently, further dependency.”</p><p class="p1">This subject, hell, this whole conversation is visibly taking its toll on his friend and Geralt struggles to remain impassive.He is not sure that his touch is as welcome as Dettlaff’s, but at least he can give his friend proximity.</p><p class="p1">Taking a chance, he rises from his chair across the table from the two vampires and, as smoothly as he can, approaches to reposition himself in the seat next to Regis, in a counterbalance to Dettlaff.</p><p class="p1">“Vampires are not meant to be solitary,” Regis says, glancing up at Geralt with trepidation, as if his words are a shameful confession and not merely a fact of his nature.“The drive to form packs is ingrained into our very survival.That is why we empathize so strongly with one another.My desire to make amends with humanity and absolve myself of guilt led me to see the hansa as my pack, out of an instinctual need for that very kinship.”</p><p class="p1">Regis’ lips slowly twist into a wry smile. </p><p class="p1">“With the others— Cahir, Milva, Angoulême, Dandelion— it was no more complicated than that.I imagine it was not dissimilar to how humans conceptualize a family.It was the closest I’d come to knowing something like that in many years.My adoptive human pack.” </p><p class="p1">At these last words, grief lines Regis’ face too deeply to ignore.The result is a display of utter vulnerability. </p><p class="p1">Geralt had never stopped to consider how the aftermath of Stygga might have affected Regis upon his revival.With half the hansa eradicated in one fell swoop, and with no way of knowing if their efforts even bore fruit.That trauma and survivor’s guilt were something that he and Regis shared emphatically.</p><p class="p1">“But it was different with you, Geralt.For reasons that escape me, it was always different with you, even before I knew why.I admit, I was attracted to you physically and intellectually every bit as much back then as I find myself now… but something else drew me in,” Regis sighs, after a pause.“Something that I’d suspected for a long time now, but only found definitive confirmation of when I drank your blood.”</p><p class="p1">The Witcher’s breath hitches ever so slightly. </p><p class="p1">His eyes once more meet Dettlaff’s over Regis’ shoulder.He doesn’t know how to respond, or if a response was even necessary, but the anticipation grows increasingly uncomfortable. </p><p class="p1">He wants nothing more than for Regis to just spit it out already, but he knows that this admission is taking its toll, and if the vampire has any hope of scrupulously exorcising his personal demons, he must do so at his own pace.</p><p class="p1">Geralt decides to take another chance and discreetly slips Regis’ unoccupied hand into his own, offering the vampire the contact of his skin, to ground them both in the moment.Regis’ hand flinches almost imperceptibly before easing into the touch; a hesitation born more from the exposure of raw emotions than any underlying rejection.</p><p class="p1">“Have I ever explained to you how vampire mate-bonds manifest, Geralt?”The question is spoken so softly, lacking all the usual confidence of one of Regis’ conversational shifts.“It is a deceptively simple process for all its emotional complexity.It begins, innocuously enough, with the sharing of blood.”</p><p class="p1">Oh…</p><p class="p1">
  <em>Oh…</em>
</p><p class="p1">Geralt can almost physically feel understanding crawl its way into his brain.</p><p class="p1">If Regis notices the weight of the Witcher’s silence, he ignores it in favor of facilitating the next words that rush out.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t mean sharing a blood-meal— which is a common enough occurrence to my kind— but rather, the sharing of one’s <em>own</em> blood.From one’s very veins, usually in the form of inviting the other to bite and drink.Of course,” and here Regis winces, “<em>you</em> did not share your blood.At least, not in any way that was remotely consensual.And so I had hoped that we might put the whole sordid event behind us.”</p><p class="p1">“Regis…” Geralt prompts, his voice barely above a whisper, as the other trails off into thought.</p><p class="p1">Regis looks up at him then and bites his lip.</p><p class="p1">“My instincts did not agree.The intake of your blood did not become sustenance in the usual intoxicating sense… but rather, it took on a form such as that of Dettlaff’s and circulated through me to aid in my regeneration. </p><p class="p1">As far as I can surmise, two factors led to this… carnal response.The first being that I already recognized you as a part of my pack— a bond that, while strained with time, distance, and near-death on both our parts— never truly dissolved.The second factor comprises your physiology.It is indeed as I long posited; you, doubtless through your multiple Witcher trials, carry enough compatible vampire mutagens, of a quantity, as to be immediately recognizable and enticing to my baser nature.”</p><p class="p1">While the news that he did, indeed, carry vampire mutagens within his physiology was not entirely surprising— given that Witchers were seldom privy to the knowledge of what various combinations of mutagens (among other things) went into their trails, especially with the knowledge now lost to time— given new context… it was troubling. </p><p class="p1">Hell, finding out he had a significant mutagenetic commonality with vampires would definitely explain a few things. </p><p class="p1">He’d found, early on, that every few years, some strange new trait would manifest and serve to estrange him further from humanity.Such had become a morbidly fascinating game of self-discovery and loathing.He and his brothers would often sit and drink over the winter and discuss their aberrant qualities with a carefully cultivated air of indifference; though Geralt, with his extra mutations, always came out of the discussion looking more freakish than either Lambert or Eskel.</p><p class="p1">The irony was not lost on him that now, after a lifetime of alienate, his mutagens offered him an affinity to beings that many would decry monsters.</p><p class="p1">In conjunction with the other matters Regis spoke of, well, he’d reserve his conclusions.It was… a lot to take in. </p><p class="p1">“Either of these factors, alone, I could contend with,” Regis continues, “even in the state that consumed me as I assailed you.But both…It was and is entirely inappropriate and I feel a tremendous amount of shame for having stolen your blood… and for such an intimate purpose.I have betrayed you twice over; by robbing you of both physical and emotional autonomy.”</p><p class="p1">“Does this mean… we’re—”</p><p class="p1">“No.Or at least, not in any way that cannot be corrected.And I swear to you, Geralt, I <em>will</em> correct this, no matter what that entails.”</p><p class="p1">“Regis,” Dettlaff interrupts with a low warning tone.“That is not what we discussed.”</p><p class="p1">Regis turns sharply to the other vampire.“What we discussed holds no bearing on the ultimate outcome here.”</p><p class="p1">“No,” Dettlaff agrees with an incline of the head.“But do not presume to take away the Witcher’s choice just because you fear it.”</p><p class="p1">With a thready indrawn breath, Regis turns just as sharply back to Geralt.“I would never,” he promises fervently.</p><p class="p1">And gods, but he wishes he could offer reassurance, but even still he is so lost.With only half the explanation buzzing around in his head like an angry wasp, he doesn’t know how to tread with care.“Please, continue,” he says and punctuates this with a squeeze to the hand he holds.</p><p class="p1">Regis picks up the tattered thread of his explanation.</p><p class="p1">“As I said before, a bond begins to form when blood is shared.But it must be a reciprocated act.With that thought in mind, I was sure that the spark, that anticipation of a bond, started by my drinking of your blood, would fade in due course.I was sure of this.And therefore, as there would be no lasting ramifications of my shameful loss of control, I judged that there was no need to even discuss the matter.” </p><p class="p1">“So that’s it then?”Geralt can’t help but feel a little crestfallen. </p><p class="p1">Sure, a bond formed accidentally and under duress was not ideal, but the fact that it was possible <em>at all</em> made Geralt long for it even more. </p><p class="p1">Then again, if Regis didn’t feel the same, if a bond formed between the two of them obstructed and caused a rift between Regis and Dettlaff… well, Geralt could understand now why Regis agonized over a situation that could potentially cost him his existing relationship.</p><p class="p1">“Ah, unfortunately no,” Regis manages through a choked-off sound, “I made a mistake.There was one key detail I neglected to consider in all of this; the Resonance.Through allowing you to ingest the Resonance, I unwittingly shared with you my blood.” </p><p class="p1">That made him blink.</p><p class="p1">Abruptly, Regis stands and begins to pace the room with agitation.He throttles the strap of his satchel with anxious fingers and rushes on in a swell of words that drip with remorse.</p><p class="p1">“I had believed that the alteration of my blood mixed into the brew would divest it of any lingering properties of its original nature.But alas, that was not so.The bond found its place and it grew.And I am wracked with guilt to have made it so.I’ve tried my damndest to ignore it, to smother it and will it to starve and die, but I am weak in this regard.I kept coming back to you, initiating the bond, probing it with physical and mental touches and— damn all the contemptible creatures— but you would <em>respond—</em> because <em>of course</em> you would!You had no idea what it meant and I encouraged it under false pretenses, because I couldn’t help myself!There’s no way you could have known, and I was too afraid and selfish to tell you— I doubt very much that you even <em>knew</em> what the sensation was.I was reckless and deeply deceptive.I acted without your consent.I am sorry, Geralt.I— I am so deeply ashamed…”</p><p class="p1">These last words come in a pained wordless twist of noise that has Dettlaff startling abruptly and racing to Regis.Regis welcomes the contact as a reflexive response and clings to Dettlaff as if his world would shake apart without the support of the other.</p><p class="p1">This, then, is what a vampiric mate-bond is. </p><p class="p1">Geralt is sure of it.For all that he’d only witnessed the pair stand side-by-side, a united front, this offer of comfort, freely and shamelessly, with implicit understanding.An empathy that needed no prompting to be so openly given. </p><p class="p1">At least, until Syanna got between them.</p><p class="p1">…until <em>Geralt</em> got between them.</p><p class="p1">“You knew about this?”</p><p class="p1">The question is left hanging in the air, but Dettlaff understands that it is addressed to him.</p><p class="p1">“I knew,” the larger vampire says with a sibilant whisper, not turning from Regis in the slightest.“I knew that Regis had a former pack of humans and that one among them was a Witcher.I did not judge.I knew what it was like.The pain of forming bonds with humans.Of loving totally, heedless of the warnings, and with reckless abandon, as one would with our own kind.I offered what I could to ease his heartache in the aftermath.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff gently coaxes Regis back to sit at the table, maintaining contact the whole time.Regis very deliberately does not meet Geralt’s eyes, and it leaves the Witcher despondent.He wants to offer comfort in the way that Dettlaff does, but he is uncertain.</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff’s near-colorless eyes catch him once more and hold his gaze captive with deep resignation.</p><p class="p1">“I knew there was something different, that something had fundamentally changed in Regis when he waited for me at my hideout in Beauclair.He did not hide it from me.He told me what had happened.That he was hopeful and anxious… and that confused me.”</p><p class="p1">“Wait, you’ve known from the start that Regis and I were circling each other, and you’re fine with that?” </p><p class="p1">Geralt doesn’t mean for it to come out as incredulous as it doubtless sounds, but he’d only really pieced together that the blood-bond shared by the two vampires was more or less synonymous with a mate-bond since reading the letter Regis left him. </p><p class="p1">That Dettlaff left to pursue Syanna was not lost on him.Just that… Dettlaff had always struck him as someone who was more than a bit… possessive of his relationships.</p><p class="p1">Evidently, this is not the case, as Dettlaff appears more confused by his question than anything else.</p><p class="p1">Thankfully, it is Regis who interjects before Geralt feels obligated to stumble through an explanation.</p><p class="p1">“Oh, Geralt, no.We, that is, vampires, do not hold such human notions in regards to relationships.Some mate-bonds are exclusive between pairs, true, but that manifests naturally, and there is no cultural expectation entreating a pair to remain just so.Monogamy is a very human practice, and one, if you don’t mind my saying, that humans are particularly bad at upholding.My love for you is not diminished by my love for Dettlaff, nor vice versa.”</p><p class="p1">Something desperate clenches in Geralt’s heart to be reminded of Regis’ love.</p><p class="p1">As Regis speaks, understanding must dawn on Dettlaff as his expression becomes progressively more distressed.“I would never stifle my mate’s capacity for affection.Regis is full of love.To ask him to suppress that in any way would be abhorrent.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff trails off, looking pensive for a time before coming to some internal conclusion and continuing.</p><p class="p1">“Thus it was all the more important that I should meet you, not as adversaries or hunter and hunted, but as a pack. I admit, for all of Regis’ regard for your character, I was wary, you are, after all, a Witcher.But speaking with you there, at Orianna’s estate, instilled hope within me that Regis had the additional support that he deserved.I was often wracked with guilt, having left Regis behind in my pursuit of Rhena.I thought I was protecting him from further harm, and needless stress to his still regenerating form, by embarking on my own.I was wrong to do so, I see that now.And so I was gladdened that he’d found the support of another in my absence, even if it was fortuitous.”</p><p class="p1">“You approved then?Of the bond between Regis and I?”He had to be sure.He would not get between the two vampires, not after the turmoil their bond had already suffered.</p><p class="p1">“I welcomed it.At least, at first I did.I admit… after discovering Rhena’s deception, things changed.I feared for Regis.I worried that he might be hurt as I was.By human deception.As a result of such thoughts, I grew to hate you. </p><p class="p1">There, at Tesham Mutna, I craved your death as keenly as I did Syanna’s.I wanted so badly to strike you down, if I only had but one excuse, one provocation… for I felt I’d lost everything and there was nothing left.When vengeance didn’t bring me any solace, I believed that nothing in this world would…But you did not allow me that destruction, and Regis stood by you, and I knew then that I did have something left to lose…I had very nearly destroyed that which I only ever cared for, all to feed an insatiable rage that left me hollow.”</p><p class="p1">Dettlaff’s eyes are near luminous in the steady gloom.They don’t quite catch and refract the light as Regis’ eyes do, but the candle’s glow slips from pupils like water off oil-slick.For all their striking intensity, these eyes are tired. </p><p class="p1">Geralt wonders if his own cat-like eyes reflect the same exhaustion, because he sure feels like they should. </p><p class="p1">Regis’ bleak gaze finds him and the fatigue is tenfold.</p><p class="p1">Geralt leans forward, slowly, giving the other ample time to turn away if he wished, and presses his forehead firmly to Regis’, sinking into the movement with the full weight of his heartache.</p><p class="p1">Regis’ breath releases in a shaky stutter and two hands gently frame the Witcher’s face, holding him in place.</p><p class="p1">“I think,” Geralt considers with care, “I understand now.”</p><p class="p1">“You would choose this then?” Dettlaff asks softly.</p><p class="p1">Geralt does not answer at first, overcome with emotions both wonderful and utterly paralyzing.</p><p class="p1">Regis interprets his hesitation differently.</p><p class="p1">“I brought this on you without your consent.For all that you told me of how you hated the manipulation and lack of choice in your other relationships, I have compelled and thus <em>wounded</em> you just the same,” Regis says in a last-ditch effort to verbally push him away even as he holds Geralt crushingly close.</p><p class="p1">“I don’t feel compelled.I don’t feel manipulated.You compare this to my past, but I know— I can <em>feel</em> that it's not the same.”</p><p class="p1">“I have biased you.”</p><p class="p1">“No, you have not.”</p><p class="p1">“<em>Geralt—</em>”</p><p class="p1">“Is it so hard to imagine that I would want this?”</p><p class="p1">“I ask only that you carefully consider what this means!Feel no obligation to me, Geralt; this is not so permanent a bond that it cannot be undone, even at this stage.You will always be dear to me, no matter what you should decide.”</p><p class="p1">“And what of you?” he bites back with a bitter edge.“What if you have time to think things over and decide that I’m just… <em>too human</em>.For all the faith you have in my mutations, I’m not a vampire.Not in any true sense.I’m prone to mortal <em>fickleness</em>.You worry about how I view my past relationships, but ask any one of them and they’ll tell you I’m more trouble than I’m worth, and they’d be right.Would you want to be stuck with <em>that?</em>”</p><p class="p1">It burns to admit, to pick at the wound of his self-worth but he is under no delusion.He knows that he is stubborn and contrarian at the best of times and downright cruel at the worst.He tries to be better, and he knows, logically, in some respects, he <em>is</em> better.But that hasn’t yet stopped him from occasionally lashing out at those who care for him when hopelessness sets in and he indulges in cynicism and despair.</p><p class="p1">How Regis can stand him enough to come to him and offer him an opportunity at happiness the likes of which no vampire and human have ever had before?A bond that, quite frankly, Geralt <em>barely</em> even knew existed? </p><p class="p1">Now that he thinks about it, something did stir within him during those moments of contact.He’d chalked it up to the tumultuous feelings he harbored in regards to his friend and the stress of the situation as a whole.It would be disingenuous to claim that, after the fact, he’d felt anything so momentous as a mate-bond.</p><p class="p1">“How you do not resent all of this is beyond me,” Regis says at length.</p><p class="p1">“Is that then what you fear?That I will come to resent you?”Geralt asks, desperation lilting his words in warped ways.“Then I have news for you, Regis.I <em>have</em> resented you.When I discovered your nature but found that I was inept to raise my sword against you, I resented your very existence.Along the course of our tumultuous companionship I’ve resented you in a hundred little ways.But you never cared, or rather, you cared <em>too damn much</em>.So forgive me if I don’t put much stock in my own piteous irrational resentments.You must understand that for all you say otherwise, at my core, I am human and so pathetically fallible.”</p><p class="p1">His words all but dead-end into clawing silence.Geralt resists the urge to pull away, to retreat into indulgent self-pity and defensive acrimony.</p><p class="p1">The silence is a fragile thing that stirs as Regis, at last, exhales.“Fallibility… is not an exclusively human trait.”</p><p class="p1">“You care deeply for him, Witcher.”Dettlaff’s statement is spoken in no uncertain terms, but rather, as a point of fact. </p><p class="p1">And though it was not presented as a question, Geralt looks from Dettlaff to Regis and answers “Yes.”</p><p class="p1">The lines of Dettlaff’s face ease and he nods in acknowledgment.“I know this.I know this because <em>he</em> knows this.But, I have come to understand that sometimes the weight of my mate’s self-doubt can… obscure his better sense.Please be patient with him, he does not believe he deserves you.If I am not mistaken, you feel likewise.”</p><p class="p1">He and Regis stare at one another, both miserable still, but both carefully considering Dettlaff’s straightforward observation that cut to the point of the matter. </p><p class="p1">What did it matter how this bond formed if it was something they both welcome now of their own volition?</p><p class="p1">“Did you mean it?The kiss?When you said you… loved me?”</p><p class="p1">“Geralt, that hardly—”</p><p class="p1">“Did you mean it?Yes or no.”</p><p class="p1">“Yes.With all my heart, yes.”</p><p class="p1">“Good.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt wraps his arms around Regis and draws him in.Regis leans forward and meets him willingly, melting into the kiss, while fingers slide through white hair and the other hand easies along the familiar juncture of neck and shoulder, over the mark that started it all. </p><p class="p1">It is a gentle thing, but no less precious for the tentative nature of the initial touch of lips.It is slow and patient and reaffirming of what matters most now— that they are alive and here, and that they both want this.</p><p class="p1">After a moment that lasts long enough to steal what air remains in his lungs, they draw apart with mutual gasps that linger in the space between their lips.The vampire’s eyes are shuttered and he remains pressed firmly into the Witcher’s space, unwilling to relinquish contact now that it has been granted, all doubts shattered.</p><p class="p1">“I couldn’t forgive myself if I’d taken away your choice in any capacity.If, in my recklessness, I lost you once and for all,” Regis professes between a plethora of bestowed nuzzles, caresses, and fluttering kisses expressed reverently upon him.</p><p class="p1">“I have my choice.I choose this.”</p>
<hr/><p class="p1">The air is golden-hued and warm, with the barest hint of chill that heralds the last days of summer, as autumn softly looms like background brush-strokes on a painter’s canvas.</p><p class="p1">It is just cool enough, in fact, for a relaxing evening around the fire pit.</p><p class="p1">His eyes catch sight of Regis, reclining, limp-limbed and making the rock he is draped upon look downright lavish.Balanced in one hand is a thick tome containing botanical sketches and notes, in the other hand is a nearly empty glass, stained at the brim with a red kiss of wine.</p><p class="p1">“I’ve another bottle.Just in time for a refill, it seems.”</p><p class="p1">The vampire chuckles softly and turns his face into the dying dusk to greet him with a smile.With features outlined by the soft light of the fire and all else dusted with suffuse amber glow, it is a sight that stalls movement and steals breath.</p><p class="p1">“Admiring the view?”The words are offered with due nonchalance betrayed by a growing grin of fangs.</p><p class="p1">“Absolutely,” Geralt breaths and resumes his way to Regis’ side.</p><p class="p1">“Hm, I’m sure I make quite the picture when compared to the whole of the Sansretour River Valley,” Regis remarks dryly as he accepts a greeting kiss.</p><p class="p1">He does make a picture though.With the customary grey gambeson tossed somewhere up at the main house, abandoned in the evening’s warmth, Regis stretches before him, all tight trousers, barefoot, and shamelessly draped in one of Geralt’s linen shirts.The fabric is large on the vampire’s slighter frame, a fact that is only modified at the pushed-up sleeves and brazenly ignored where the open neck shows off a considerable amount of collarbone.</p><p class="p1">Geralt must stare for far too long as the next words that greet him with a chortle are “My dear, if I didn’t know you better, I would think you were considering giving in to your latent vampiric urges with the way you’re eyeing my neck.”</p><p class="p1">Geralt opens his mouth, then shuts it again slowly as he realizes that any answer in his defense would be a weak one at best. </p><p class="p1">Instead, he holds up the bottle he’s brought.“More wine?”</p><p class="p1">Regis, as expected, looks entirely too smug for his own good as he holds his glass out for the Witcher to refill.</p><p class="p1">Having neglected to bring his own glass, Geralt takes a generous drink straight from the bottle and tucks comfortably into the other’s side.</p><p class="p1">Having set aside his tome, Regis’ fingers slide through Geralt’s hair; idly massaging his scalp and teasing the soft wisps at the base of his skull.He all but purrs at the familiar motions.</p><p class="p1">They share the wine and speak softly of this or that well past sunset and moonrise.The fire pit offers steady warmth wherever they do not touch and a play of light and shadow that scintillates over their skin.</p><p class="p1">He can feel the warmth of Regis’ love diffuse through him, and it never fails to amaze him.</p><p class="p1">They had been work together to strengthen the bond between them.It turned out that Geralt, for all that he wasn’t so much a vampire, could slowly but surely tap into the instinct that connected them and exercise the bond, like a muscle he never knew he had. </p><p class="p1">He was optimistic that with time and effort he would be able to perceive the bond just as intuitively as Regis.For now, the faint presence he feels at his core that he has come to identify as his mate, offers him love and reassurance in equal measure. </p><p class="p1">He’s still not sure he deserves all this.The self-doubt and bitterness still take hold of him from time to time, and he falls back into what’s familiar, though it hurts.But he knows that Regis often grapples with many of the same demons. </p><p class="p1">And perhaps it is a selfish notion, but Geralt derives some comfort in knowing that Regis understands such things— that one will be there to offer empathy and security to the other when needed— that Regis safeguards his heart, and that he has been allowed the precious privilege to reciprocate.</p><p class="p1">That though change is inevitable and endings are the natural course of all things; there is catharsis in allowing for change and healing and allowing some things to end, so others might have the chance to begin.</p><p class="p1">And as ravens let out low sleepy croaks in the trees overhanging the dying fire, and the waning moon hangs overhead, and as a hand grasps his own and leads him back toward the main house of Corvo Bianco, past the threshold, and into the warmth beyond…</p><p class="p1">Geralt finds, that for the first time in a long time, he is at peace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>When I wrote the first chapter of this fic, I thought for sure that it would be no more than three short chapters.  And then this beast got away from me and ran wild.</p><p>Honestly y’all, without your kudos, comments, and overwhelming support, I can't say for sure if this fic would've exceeded those three short chapters.  This has been an absolute joy to write and I can’t express enough how much I appreciate you.  Thank you.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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